FACEBOOK announces it is giving itself a makeover, going the way of Pinterest and Instagram by focusing on the visual aspect of the site.
The News Feed on home pages at the leading social network was revamped to get rid of clutter and present "bright, beautiful" stories whether they are insights from friends or trending news of the day.
"I think there is a special place in the world for this sort of personalised newspaper," Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in introducing the overhauled News Feed at a press event at its California headquarters.
He said that when Facebook first launched, it was primarily about text but the rise of smartphones has slowly changed the dominant content over time from text to photos and videos.
"It should have a front page and top news section or let you drill down into any topic you want."
Photos now make up to 50 per cent of the content posted on Facebook, Mr Zuckerberg said. The new News Feed should reflect that.
The new News Feed gives users better control over their content, turning every user into a content creator. Its new look is visually stunning, and whether you're looking at a photo or a news story, Facebook said it wanted people to know what they're looking at straight away, by which they mean fewer words, more images.
The three major changes to Facebook focus on bigger images, multiple feeds and providing the same look across all devices - a first for the social network.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows off the new News Feed, which emphasises video and images over text news. Picture: AFP
"The news feed is one of the most important things we've built," he said. "The stories around you deserve to be displayed with more than just text."
"How we're all sharing is changing and the news feed needs to evolve with those changes. This is the evolving face of news feed."
The social network is taking a page out of Instagram's book by providing the same kind of chronological, image based feed you see on the photo sharing app.
Separating out the news feeds gives users more control over how they are displayed. Users can subscribe to different kinds of feeds including music, photos, games, friends, close friends, as well as feeds that your friends follow too.
The new look also gives precedence to news and entertainment outlets. When you post a link to a news story it will appear with a much larger, square thumbnail, a write off and a much larger, more prominent headline, in a different font, giving it prominence.
The logo of the media outlet will also appear in the bottom right hand corner, allowing users to know where the post has come from without the need to click on the link.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows the news feed redesign to reporters. The new format will be identical on mobile and desktop as the company seeks to better cash in on mobile users.
Facebook is separating out the kinds of content you view, creating separate news feeds for different kinds of content. You can toggle between feeds by using a column on the right hand side of the page which separates content into categories such as music, video or photos.
You can also choose to view a news feed of your close friends (which you can curate as a customised list), or everyone on your feed, or even just certain key people.
The music feed, for example, will not only provide users access to what their friends are listening to, it will also provide information about events and gigs that are happening nearby.
The feeds will be listed in chronological order too (rather than the top stories which uses Edge Rank to decide what content is most relevant to you), meaning you won't miss out on posts by your friends.
"You can see the world around you as your friends are experiencing it right now" said Facebook's tech lead, Chris Struhar.
The new interface will be the same across mobile, and desktop.
Facebook users will be able to better pick and customise their news feeds by subscribing to music, photos, game, friends and close friends.
Facebook's head of mobile consistency, Chris Cox said the new design is "about getting Facebook out of the way as much as possible".
The same look, different device is an important move for the social network which has struggled to figure out how it can make mobile advertising work.
In January it was announced that Facebook had more active mobile users than desktop users so finding a way to include targeted advertising on mobile, is more than just important, it's essential.
The new look is a savvy move for the social network. It gives users better control over their content, however it's also starting to become clear how Facebook is going to better utilise their advertising. The new look would allow for targeted advertising to sit in the News Feed alongside your friends' posts.
Visually interesting it's not off-putting to look at, the way that its current ads are, but they're also easy to ignore. Users might have to work a little harder to distinguish between content posted by their friends, rather than advertising, however.
Facebook said the changes will start to roll out today and over the next weeks, however not everyone will get it to begin with.
The new version of Facebook's News Feed will take advantage of the growing use of visuals like video and images, over text updates. Photos now make up more than 50 per cent of Facebook content. Picture: Supplied
The social network said it wanted to be careful and slow about rolling out its new look.
Certain key users in the US will be the first to try it out, and then over the coming weeks it will roll out abroad.
Facebook's redesign will have the same interface across mobile and desktop. The company now has more mobile users than desktop users.
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