Facebook announced today major changes to the news feed in an attempt to transform Facebook as a “personalized newspaper.” The news feed is made up of three aspects: rich stories, choice of feeds and a mobile consistent UI.

The updates are pretty much spot on with predictions and speculation prior to the event. We’re seeing multiple feeds, and a clean and rich redesign.

Rich Stories

Facebook is putting a greater emphasis on the visuals of what we share on Facebook, including photos, albums, articles, videos and other content. When you share a link or an article, the publisher’s logo will now show up along with the link preview.

Common things that tend to show up on your news feed are when a lot of your friends like a brand, become friends with someone or share the same content. The preview for all of these is about to change.

When multiple friends share the same content, their pictures will now show up in a tab on the left of the content preview. 


Friend suggestions will now show more about a mutual friend so you get a better idea of who they are. This goes for pages for brands and public figures as well.

There is also a feature for upcoming events based on what your friends are doing, what’s happening in your area and places you’ve checked into in the past.

For public figures you Like on Facebook, not only can you see updates from their pages, but you’ll also now see news about them. For example, if you follow Taylor Swift, you can see posts from her page but also headlines and article previews from publications about her.

Choice of Feeds

The second part of the news feed update is the control over what content you browse through. You can opt for an All Friends feed, which features content shared from all of your friends in chronological order, a music feed, a photos feed and a Following feed (which reminds me of Twitter).

Facebook is also revamping its most recent feed to ensure you don’t miss out on anything.

Mobile Consistent UI

The big goal in this redesign is “getting Facebook out of the way as much as possible.” The social network is pushing content into the front of the experience and pulling back the chrome around it. The news feed is a mobile-inspired design, which updates things such as typeface, color, boxes around stories and navigation. Consistency is key to the design – tablets, smartphones and Web browsers will all show the same feeds, navigations, photo quality and more, making it nice and easy for developers and consumers alike.

The new news feed starts rolling out today and will continue over the next few weeks. Go to facebook.com/newsfeed to join the waiting list and find out more information.