Facebook has got to have some sort of bottomless pit of ideas on how to increase your addiction usage and enjoyment of the social networking site, the most recent one in the form of an Android-exclusive app suite, Facebook Home. While we all wait for its official release, we are left still wondering about the other new features that still have a long list of hopeful Facebook users waiting to be included – it’s been a while since the brand-new News Feed and Timeline were announced. Right after the redesigns were brought to the public, Facebook asked the few who were lucky enough to gain early access to rate their experience through a user survey.
Users who’ve been selected to participate in the survey were asked to compare the old version of the News Feed with the new one in terms of visual presentation and overall effectiveness in providing relevant stories. They were also asked to rate the appearance of ads in terms of quantity. The survey is hosted by BTIG Research – an institutional investment firm – and requires registration using a corporate email before gaining access to their content.
In line with increasing News Feed user engagement, Facebook has decided to add a number indicator beside the Home button that could be based on Facebook contacts and pages that are most popular on a user’s feed.
Of course we can pretty much guess why Facebook is slowly doling out this News Feed alert update – so you are fully aware at all times of how many posts you are missing while you are off stalking checking someone’s profile, perusing the pages you follow, and reading ongoing conversations in your groups and private messages.
When does this feature completely roll out to all Facebook users? It’ll probably be a while, since not everyone on the social networking site is even on the new News Feed yet, but we’ve reached out to Facebook to find out, anyway. We’ll be updating this story when we have more information.
[screenshots from All Facebook]