Facebook has just rolled out an updated version of its news feed that lets users switch between viewing a live version and an older one, where they can see what’s happened since they last logged in. Screenshots of possible news feeds Facebook was testing out began circulating around the web earlier this month.
The social network overhauled the design of its news feed back in the spring to put the stream of real-time updates down the center of the page — similar to micromessaging site Twitter. It also created a “Highlights” section on the right-hand side of the page that contained select older content about your friends’ activity on the site, such as recently uploaded photo albums and links to articles and videos your friends shared. The new version is moving the “Highlights” section to the middle of the page, where it was located prior to the spring redesign.
When asked if Facebook is rolling out the new version to get away from looking similar to Twitter, Facebook product manager Peter Deng said, “I don’t think we were trying to be like Twitter. Status updates have been on the page since 2006.” He added: “We’re showing you content that’s more popular when you first log in. But when you switch to live feed, it looks how it does today.”
The latest news feed design just went live; it will be gradually rolled out to all of Facebook’s 300 million users throughout the day.
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