Facebook announced Monday that it is updating the News Feed algorithm to include links to more "high-quality" news articles at the expense of meme photos that redirect users to different sites.
Facebook is making yet another shift in bringing content, for its users. The social networking giant conducted a research before pushing out more "high-quality" articles into the News Feed area in place of latest memes. With the integration, users will see links to articles dealing with current events, sports or politics more frequently.
Facebook users will notice the change, particularly on mobile, as the company aims at bringing trending news while on-the-go. This brings users the knowledge of what's happening around the world and in their friends circle with an ease. The decision to eliminate memes shouldn't have a huge impact on users as most people have shown interest in news articles over photos, Facebook says.
"We've noticed that people enjoy seeing articles on Facebook, and so we're now paying closer attention to what makes for high quality content, and how often articles are clicked on from News Feed on mobile," Facebook engineering manager Varun Kacholia and software engineer Minwen Ji wrote on the company's blog.
When users click on an article of their interest, it displays three related articles that may attract the readers. By clicking on the link, users will be redirected to the source of the story giving users the full article.
Besides adding first-class articles to the News Feed and minimizing memes, Facebook is also driving user engagement. The new algorithm will occasionally bring certain stories on top of the News Feed section whenever new comments are added, a feature which is already seen on the site when old posts or photos of friends appear out of the blue whenever new comments are added. This lets users keep the conversation going.
