Facebook books some changes
December 4, 2013 01:24 pm
Facebook has announced it will be replacing its
"Hide All" button with "Unfollow," allowing its 1.1 billion
users to block all messages and posts from selected friends.
De-friending is of course still an option but Facebook’s
unfollow button will mean users will not see any of a chosen person’s posts on
their news feed.
Facebook also announced earlier this week that it is
going to differentiate news articles from random content, like meme photos from
other sites. Articles or content deemed ‘high quality’ by Facebook will get
special treatment.
“We’ve noticed that people enjoy seeing articles on
Facebook, and so we’re now paying closer attention to what makes for high-quality
content, and how often articles are clicked on from News Feed on mobile,” the
company said in a Monday blog post.
“What this means is that you may start to notice links to
articles a little more often (particularly on mobile).”
There is no news that Facebook is working on a
highly-requested ‘dislike’ button, but AllThingsD is reporting the
social network is testing a read-it-later feature for mobile, like Instapaper.
"The feature, which was pointed out to AllThingsD by
the technology blog MyTechSkool, comes in the form of a small iBook-like
bookmark button attached to stories shared in the News Feed," AllThingsD
reported.
"Click the button, and the link will be set aside in
a “saved” menu inside a user’s Facebook apps menu."
Facebook began rolling out the "Unfollow"
button and a related change to its users on Monday.
It added a "Following" button next to the usual
"Like" button on a page or next to the "Friends" button on
a personal timeline, which will also enable users to block posts.