Facebook confirmed Thursday that it’s pulling the plug on a test that removed content from publishers and businesses from the News Feed, and put it in a separate “Explore Feed.”
During the five months it carried out the test, publishers from six selected countries saw a significant decrease in the number of users engaging with their content. And that was even before the algorithm change that took place in early 2018.
Adam Mosseri, head of Facebook’s News Feed product said that Facebook has decided against the separate feeds after polling users, explaining that
“People don’t want two separate feeds. In surveys, people told us they were less satisfied with the posts they were seeing, and having two separate feeds didn’t actually help them connect more with friends and family.”
The end of the test also marks the end of the “Explore” feed itself, a section of the app where users could find public content from brands or publishers they didn’t follow.
The bad news for businesses though, is that Mosseri confirmed that Facebook will still show more content from friends and families – and less from brands and publishers. At least now we will all get to compete in the same arena.
As Recode notes, the irony is that the separation of friends’ posts, and publisher content, is the premise of Snapchat’s redesign. Yes, that very unpopular redesign people are freaking out about…
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