When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg debuted Graph Search in January, he explained it as being one of the three pillars of the social network. He sees Timeline, News Feed and Search as the primary ways users experience the Facebook graph and build new connections.

Timeline is the company’s reinvented approach to the profile, and Graph Search is a new take on how to navigate Facebook and discover things about your friends and the world. But News Feed, despite its many redesigns over the years, hasn’t had the sort of transformation that the other two pillars have seen in the past 18 months. That’s bound to change, perhaps even this year.

Not only is News Feed due for an overhaul, reports from Business Insider and TechCrunch support this notion. Business Insider heard from someone close to Facebook VP of Product Chris Cox, who is reportedly tasked with evolving the feed. TechCrunch got a peek at an unlaunched version of the Facebook mobile app that puts content into more immersive feeds organized by category.

As Zuckerberg often explains, the amount that people share on Facebook doubles each year, whether because of new features like location tagging, third-party apps like Spotify or the proliferation of connected devices. Combine that with the explosion of Facebook page marketing and advertising, and it’s clear that News Feed will have to evolve. At Facebook’s current state, more sharing either means a more crowded feed or a lot of information left out. Neither is ideal, so we could see the company address this by giving users more options to see what they want when they want it.
(more…)

Image-based e-commerce and advertising company Stipple today announced that its interactive image tags now work on Facebook, allowing publishers and advertisers to drive engagement and purchases through the News Feed.

Stipple gives users and businesses a way to attach additional content — such as shopping links, YouTube videos, Twitter feeds or more photos — to a single image, which can be embedded across various websites and now social networks like Twitter and Facebook. When users click on a tag, they can see additional information about a photo, watch a video or click to visit another site to buy something or learn more.

Marketers can use Stipple to create more dynamic Facebook posts, which can also be promoted as ads in the feed. Many brands have wanted Facebook to offer more immersive ad experiences, not realizing that it has already been possible to share and promote small Flash applications via page posts. Stipple can make it easier for pages to start using this strategy.

(more…)

Facebook posts that contain links offsite will now appear in the desktop News Feed with a nearly three times larger image preview, the company has informed some of its advertisers.

Instead of 90×90 pixels, link previews will be 154×154 pixels. The link summary will also be able to include more characters. This change aims to help page owners and advertisers who want to drive users off Facebook. It could also lead users to click more links that their friends share. For now, only the desktop design is affected, but we’ve heard the social network is preparing a mobile version.

It seems the change does not apply to video sites like YouTube. The company likely wants page owners and advertisers to upload their videos to Facebook rather than hosting them on YouTube and then using the social network’s pages and ads feature to drive people there.

(more…)

Instagram released new versions of its iOS and Android apps on Thursday, including a new filter, bug fixes and new translations. Instagram for Android now allows users to post their photos directly to a Facebook page rather than their personal profile.

Previously, only Instagram for iOS offered the option of posting to fan pages. Android users had to share an image to Instagram, then manually post it to their Facebook page. Now businesses and public figures can use any device to automatically publish their photos to a Facebook page. Users can switch between different pages or their personal profile at any point by visiting their profile options, tapping “share settings,” “Facebook” and “Share Photos to.”

 For iOS, Instagram made the following updates:

• Support for Facebook integration in iOS 6, allowing people to easily sign up for an account or quickly connect an existing Instagram account with Facebook.
• The ability to select photographs from an album other than the Camera Roll.
• Photos taken utilizing the front-facing camera will no longer be mirrored.
• Fixed the inaccurate display of the privacy toggle switch present in version 3.4.
• Fixed a bug that affected photo sharing for certain locales present in version 3.4.
• Various bug fixes and improvements surrounding camera performance.

Both iOS and Android gained a new filter called Mayfair. The company says it is ideal for ”evenly and well-lit scenes in conjunction with the Lux feature.”

Facebook has begun rolling out an update to the publisher box where users can make status updates and share photos. Now users can drag and drop image files into the box to quickly share one or more photos from their News Feed or Timeline.

The update eliminates the sometimes cumbersome process of navigating through file folders and menu options. It also allows users to attach multiple photos to a post without having to go through the process of creating a photo album, which previously wasn’t possible from desktop.

For now, this feature is available in the publisher above News Feed and users’ Timelines, but not on business pages. It takes a minimum of six clicks for a page owner to upload and publish a single photo from desktop. With the drag-and-drop feature for users, someone can share a photo in one click. It’s likely the feature will be added to pages at some point.

Drag-and-drop uploading is available for users’ and pages’ Timeline cover photo. It’s also an option within the new Messsages format. We have not heard from Facebook whether the feature is limited certain browsers.

Photos are one of the most critical features for Facebook to get right. The company has significantly improved the photo viewing and sharing experience on mobile this year with its standalone Camera app and features that were later brought to the main iOS app. Today’s update is a vast improvement for desktop users.

Instagram today responded to concerns raised by users and the press after it proposed updates to its terms of use and privacy policy on Monday. In a blog post from CEO Kevin Systrom, the company clarified it does not intend to sell users’ photos and it plans to update its new terms of service accordingly.

It was widely misreported that Instagram, now under ownership of Facebook, would “sell” users’ photos to advertisers. These stories went viral and users threatened to quit the service. The language in question was:

“Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.”

CNET went as far as to suggest, “That means that a hotel in Hawaii, for instance, could write a check to Facebook to license photos taken at its resort and use them on its Web site, in TV ads, in glossy brochures, and so on — without paying any money to the Instagram user who took the photo.”

That is false. Systrom clarified in his post today:

“Our intention in updating the terms was to communicate that we’d like to experiment with innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram. Instead it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation. This is not true and it is our mistake that this language is confusing. To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos.”

As we wrote about on Monday, what Instagram has in mind is more like Facebook Sponsored Stories. For example, an advertiser might pay to promote stories about users following their brand or liking one of their photos. The legal disclaimer is necessary because Facebook was recently hit with a class action suit where users claimed they deserved compensation for having their name and photos included in ads this way. Facebook agreed to a $20-million settlement, which includes a cash payment of up to $10 to Facebook users who objected to this use of their information. It continues to use people’s names and images along with Sponsored Stories.

We suggested there might also be a way in the future for advertisers to pay Instagram to highlight user-generated photos to a user’s friends. Systrom explained today:

“We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question.”

The company will update its terms of service — which are set to go into effect on Jan. 16 — to address these points and make it clear that users’ privacy settings persist. Instagram only shares photos with the people users have approved to follow them. Its new terms of use and privacy policy do not change this.

Facebook today announced a major update to its Android application that improves the speed of launching the app, viewing photos and loading Timeline.

The update is similar to the one done for iOS in August. Previously, Facebook’s mobile applications were basically HTML5 sites within the frame of a native app. That approach made it possible to release daily updates without requiring users to download a new version and helped the company scale its mobile offering across different devices during a period of rapid growth. But the user experience suffered because the app was so slow. This has become more pronounced as other mobile apps, built natively, have greatly improved. Now Facebook can be on par with other apps and continue to make changes to improve speed.

“The infrastructure in place will let us continue to make the app even faster, smoother, and feature-rich,” engineer Frank Qixing DU said in a note on the Facebook Engineering page.

Photo viewing is a particular area of focus since it’s so core to the experience of the social network. With Facebook for Android 2.0, when users tap on a photo, it will open more quickly and they can scroll through photo albums without losing their place in News Feed. Facebook says it has improved speed 2x in this area. Liking and commenting is more efficient, too, and the company says that Timeline loads faster and the app overall opens more quickly than in the past.

These changes will make browsing Facebook more enjoyable for users, increasing the amount of time they spend using the app and making them more likely to view and interact with page posts, app stories and ads.

The new version will be available for download later today in the Google Play Store.

Facebook this week launched a Year in Review page for users to see their memorable posts and events from 2012. It’s a fun experience for users, but one aspect of the project might be especially interesting for marketers and advertisers.

When users share their Year in Review with friends, their post appears in News Feed with a prominent image and short description of the feature. The difference with this post and others on the social network is that the image links directly to another page. This new format is something businesses would benefit from if brought to their page posts in the future. Currently they have to make trade-offs when posting images and links.

For instance, with other photo posts on Facebook, clicking on the image brings up a larger version of the photo within a lightbox view. If a person or page wants to post a full-size photo, but also send viewers to a particular destination, they can include a hyperlink within the photo caption. However, users are less likely to notice and click on this small line of text.

If getting users to another site or area of Facebook is a priority, pages will often make a link post. Photos are only thumbnail size, but users can click the image or anywhere on the link’s details to navigate to the destination.

This structure forces page owners and advertisers to make trade-offs. Do they want to catch users’ eyes with a large photo but risk having a link buried in the caption, or do they want to optimize for link clicks, even though the post’s visuals won’t be as compelling?

For Facebook’s Year in Review app, it didn’t have to choose. The image was big enough to tell a compelling story and get attention in the feed, while also serving as larger target for clickthroughs to the desired page. It ends up functioning more like a traditional banner unit, and advertisers would be happy to see this format applied to their own posts and ads in the feed so they could drive more traffic to their page, app or website.

As Facebook seeks opportunities to make its platform more valuable for advertisers, while also improving user experience, it is likely looking at new page post formats. For instance, there was the Collections test in October, and we’ve seen the company testing a version of Facebook Questions that lets page owners attach images to a poll. Offers were a new post type introduced this year. That option now requires page owners to spend a minimum of $5 per offer, and we can imagine Facebook charging a premium for future post types that may be more interactive.

Facebook today announced a number of changes to improve the usability of its privacy controls, including a redesigned activity log, a two-step app permissions process, a new request and removal tool for photos, and more user education throughout the site.

The social network has long offered some of the most robust privacy controls on the web, but because of this comprehensiveness, it struggles with presenting all the options in a clear, easy-to-use way. The changes announced today are Facebook’s most prominent efforts at simplifying its system and giving users more control over what they share since it overhauled privacy settings and introduced the activity log last year.

The latest changes appear to be an improvement with more straightforward language, fewer options hidden beneath menus, a faster way to untag multiple photos and an app authorization process that first asks users if an app can access a user’s information and then asks if it can post to Timeline.

Of course, any time Facebook makes any visual or functional changes, users have to adjust. The frequency with which the social network reorganizes features and introduces new ones is a source of frustration for many people. Another upcoming change that some users will dislike is the phase out of the “Who can look up my timeline by name?” setting. Facebook will soon make it so that users can not hide themselves from Facebook search. The company points out that the setting was limited in that users can be found a number of other ways on the site. It has removed the setting for users who were not using it, and will gradually remove it for the “small percentage” of users who are.

We’ll go into the changes in more depth below. Facebook says these updates will roll out over the next few weeks.
(more…)

Instagram made a change this weekend that prevents previews of photos posted from the app from appearing on Twitter. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom confirmed at Le Web that this was intentional so that more users visit Instagram on the web and mobile.

“This is an evolution of just where we are and where we want links from our content to go,” Systrom said.

There is still an easy option for users to share their recent Instagram shots on Twitter, but they appear only as a link rather than as a full photo. It makes sense for Instagram to capture traffic from Twitter and bring users into its platform where they can comment, like or take other actions within its ecosystem — even if the experience is less ideal for users.

But there’s something else at play here. Twitter is rumored to be working on its own photo filtering feature. The New York Times reported this in early November and this weekend AllThingsD reported that the feature could roll out before the end of the year. [Update 12/10/12 3:25 p.m. - Twitter launched filters today.] Instagram’s moves to stop showing its photos within Twitter could be a means of brand protection. It might not want users to confuse Twitter’s stylized photos with its own hallmark of vintage-looking square photos.

For now it seems Instagram will continue to let its images appear natively within other services, giving more reason to believe the company’s issue is with Twitter because of impending competition.

“This is more of a one-off, trying to figure out specifically with our Twitter integration what it should look like,” he said at Le Web. “What we’ve decided is that now what makes sense is to direct users to our new mobile experience.”
(more…)