If you don’t view your Facebook home page using “LIVE FEED”, you are missing out on much of the Facebook experience.  At the top of your home page you will see one of the following and you can toggle back and forth between News Feed and Live Feed.

If this is what you see…you are looking at the News Feed view of your home page:

If this is what you see…you are looking at the Live Feed view:

Below is an overview of some of the “views” you have available to you and why I prefer the LIVE FEED:

NEWS FEED View:  A Limited View Based on a Facebook Algorithm
If you only look at the News Feed view of your home page, you will see what Facebook thinks is most popular from your friends and pages that you are a fan of.  Facebook uses an algorithm to figure out what is most popular or interesting and frankly I don’t like their algorithm and have heard from many people that don’t!

Posts made by Pages you are a Fan of will only appear in your News Feed if Facebook thinks the post is interesting.  Therefore you will miss most, if not all, of the posts from Fan Pages that you actually want to follow.  You will also miss a lot of what your friends share on Facebook!

The items in your News Feed are NOT in chronological order which seems very bazaar to me!

LIVE FEED View:  A Real-Time, Up-to-Date View of What Your Friends & Pages Are Sharing
If you toggle over to the Live Feed view, you will see everything that is posted by your friends and Pages you are a Fan of.  (The LIVE FEED is most similar to what you used to see on your home page prior to the recent Facebook changes.)  In the Live Feed view, you will also see info that used to be in the highlights section on the right side of your screen.  Plus, a few other things which you may or may not want to see.

Remember, if you don’t use the Live Feed view you will miss out on a lot of the posts that are made by your friends and Pages you are a Fan of!

STATUS UPDATES View:  Extremely Limited View…You Are Missing A LOT!
If you click on the filter that says “Status Updates” on the left side of your home page…your view of the home page will temporarily change so that you see only Status Updates from your friends.  You will NOT see any links, photos or videos that your friends share. You also will NOT see Status Updates or posts from Pages you are a Fan of.

Other Available Views:
There are also filters on the left side of your home page that you can use to view only photos or links or videos or pages, etc…  I personally only use these filters, and the Status Updates filter, if I am trying to find something that I saw a few hours or a day or so ago.

My Conclusion/Decision:
I prefer the home page view I saw before Facebook made their recent changes.  However, since I have to adjust to the changes, I use the LIVE FEED view so that I can see everything I truly want to see from my friends and Pages I am a Fan of.  I just scroll quickly past things that I don’t care as much about like games, who commented on what, who became friends with who or who got tagged in a photo.  (Most of the time I even “block” game & quiz applications so I can get through my Live Feed faster.)

In actuality, the new home page resembles the home page that existed prior to March of 2009.  Many of its features were brought back because Facebook members didn’t like the changes they made in March.  I think there must be a happy medium somewhere!  What do you think?

Please “share” this blog post if you are on Facebook or retweet it in Twitter, etc…to help spread this info about filters and home page viewing options!

Your Facebook Informant,
Kimberly Yow

Become a Fan of my Facebook Fan Page and feel free to join the conversation

News Feed
When you log into Facebook, you’ll see the most interesting things that happened in the last day in the “News Feed” view. News Feed picks stories that we think you’ll enjoy based on a variety of factors including how many friends have liked and commented on it and how likely you are to interact with that story.

Live Feed
Once you’ve caught up on what you missed, you can click through to “Live Feed” to see what’s happening right now. As long as you remain logged into Facebook, you’ll continue to see posts and activity from your friends in real-time. You can edit what appears in this view by clicking “Edit Options” at the bottom of the home page.

Facebook decided to make changes to the home page after getting feedback on the home page changes they made in March.  With this latest change, Facebook is moving what you used to see in the Highlights section on the right hand side of your screen back into the News Feed.  The following will also, once again, be noted in the News Feed:

• when your friends are tagged in photos
• when your friends become a Fan of a Page
• when they RSVP for an event
• when they join groups
• when they make new friends

Facebook has also made birthdays and events easier to spot in the right column of the home page.

Facebook says the following about these changes:

We put a lot of thought into all the changes we make to the site and do a lot of testing before releasing anything. As we design new products, we gather feedback by reading emails from users like you and testing ideas with small groups of users. After every change we make, we continue to gather feedback and iterate. Please take some time to play around with this new design, and check out our Help Center if you have any questions.

When someone sees that their friend became a Fan of a Page, RSVP’d for an event or joined a group, they are more likely to click on the page/event/group link to check it out.  This should increase the viral growth of these items AND be good for businesses with Fan Pages or Groups! But remember, if you want your content classified as ‘most interesting’ and placed in the News Feed…it will be very important to provide great content that engages your readers and makes them click the comment or like buttons.

Here’s to change…again!

Your Facebook Informant,
Kimberly Yow