noprefsA few months ago, Facebook added per-story feedback to the News Feed in order to allow users to help the service learn their personal preferences. While Facebook has always allowed more general Facebook preferences (like More About These Friends/Less About These Friends), this feedback was much more granular and potentially powerful.

facebook feed settingsHowever, as of today, Facebook has removed News Feed story preferences. When asked to comment on the change, a Facebook representative said the thumbs up and thumbs down were removed “to simplify the site and create a better user experience.”

It’s too bad Facebook wasn’t able to get more value out of the explicit preference data users were generating. For now, Facebook will need to rely on more implicit data.

Bookmark This

Check out The Facebook Marketing Bible: 24 Ways to Market Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook

9 Responses to “Facebook simplifies News Feed interface”

  1. Mitch Says:

    I don’t agree with their reasoning. The buttons were already unobtrusive and you only really saw them when you were looking for them. Bring the buttons back, Facebook!

  2. Tim Says:

    I always thought those things were a little useless. How does the user interpret them? How do they interpret the statistics resulting? What am I saying I don’t like about the fact my friend just left a political group - I don’t like group stories? political groups specifically? leaving groups? news about that friend in particular?

  3. Rafael Rodriguez Says:

    I need the thumbs, i used to see the news I already see and what news are new!

    Right now i dont know what news are new or old!

  4. Glen Says:

    Very disappointing, I got quite used to this feature.

  5. Frode Says:

    I also want the thumbs back. I sent a question to Facebook if my thumb down indicated I didn’t want that type of feed, or if it also indicated I don’t want news from that user, but I never got an answer.

    But I also found the thumbs extremely useful for marking what I had read, allowing me to quickly discover new news items.

  6. Will Says:

    When I wrote to ask about the missing buttons, what they told me was “We have removed these options to reduce clutter on the site.”

    I agree with Mitch and Rafael and Glen, I didn’t think the buttons were cluttering at all, and I liked the idea of being able to give per-story feedback, and I ALSO used it to tell which items I had read! Kinda frustrating now. It’s definitely NOT a better user experience here, without them.

  7. Ian Kennedy Says:

    I find it hard to use facebook without my thumbs!

  8. Facebook takes away your thumbs Says:

    […] Facebook noticed that the thumbs up icon no longer on the Facebook mini-feed.  All in the name of simplification […]

  9. Inside Facebook » Facebook Removes News Feed Preferences Says:

    […] weeks after it removed per-story (thumbs up/thumbs down) preferences from the News Feed, Facebook today further simplified the News Feed interface by removing the […]

Leave a Reply