As some of you may be aware, it was Facebook's annual developer conference last week. This is where Mark Zuck and the rest of his crew unveil the latest changes to the Facebook platform. Below is a quick round up of the most significant developments. You can find out more by visiting the f8 Facebook Page.
The 'Ticker' & App Permissions:
The most obvious change that you may already be aware of is the revised Homepage, where you now have two different feeds of information:
1. The original News Feed where all the most important stuff appears - status updates, photos, videos, etc
2. A 'real-time ticker' on the top right-hand side which feeds through all the 'less significant' stuff - comments, check-ins, and most importantly App notifications.
This change ties in with Facebook's concept of 'frictionless sharing', where users don't have to bother with the 'friction' of choosing to share something. Going forward, merely experiencing something is enough to trigger sharing. Take the new Spotify application - when I listen to a track, I share it... instantly. When I listen to a new track, my friends will be notified in the Ticker. If a friend then chooses to listen to that track it becomes an 'event' and have prominence on the main News Feed. The differentiation between what is now classed as 'important' by Facebook is a significant change and could impact on how much awareness is driven by app notifications, not to mention the privacy implications for users.
The 'Timeline' Profile:
Another big change is the new 'Timeline' profile layout. Apart from the large cover image, the new profile is a stream of information about you – photos, status updates, friends you've made, even the places you've visited on a world map. On the right-hand side of the Page is the option to look back at what you've done. The further back in Timeline you go, the more Facebook will compress the information so that you're only seeing the most interesting parts of your history. You can also retrospectively populate this with significant events in your life, even back to the day you were born. Applications will make a reappearance on the new profile, but their significance will vary massively depending on how 'important' Facebook (or You) consider them to be. The new profile is due to roll out over the next few weeks, but you can activate it now following this guide.
The inclusion of Verbs:
This is a pretty major development and could be a big step towards a true Semantic Social Web (i.e. a Web of collective knowledge, with useful information based on human contributions and which get better as more people participate). Up until now, if a Facebook user wants to share something they would have to 'Like' it. This is now going to change, as users will be able to use verbs. In other words, you'll start seeing the option to tell your friends when you’re 'reading' a book or 'listening' to a song or 'watching' a movie. Many people think this could lead to lead to over-sharing (perhaps in an attempt to more fully populate your Timeline), but it's likely that these type of updates will appear in the Ticker rather than on the main News Feed.
Facebook have joined forces will a bunch of media partners to put this change into affect and provide their users will the ability to discover rich media content without ever having to leave Facebook. A good example of this at work is the new Guardian canvas application which allows you to explore some of its key content.
What do these changes mean for brands?
Whilst these changes won't have an immediate impact on the layout or functionality of brand Pages, the introduction of the 'Ticker' means that Facebook have added a control at the top right of each News Feed story, so users can uncheck our posts if they feel they aren't worthy of 'top story' status. It's likely that Facebook will then use this data to automatically edit people's feeds and prioritise what posts are most 'important' to that user. This means that brands who post uninteresting or irrelevant updates could have lower visibility overtime. Therefore, interactions (likes, comments and shares) are more important than ever. Brands must continue to really focus on quality of engagement with their Likers - whether that's via consistently entertaining/interesting/useful posts or the inclusion of verbs within their apps, providing new and interesting ways for consumers to interact with content and share.
