Facebook offered the public an in-depth look at how the site ranks stories in users News Feeds and what the algorithm behind it looks like. Now, users can understand a little bit better how the site decides which stories are the most important and which old story's to bump up so users can see them.
The site has to sift through tens of thousands of potential posts each day and determine which ones are the most important for users to see. According to CNET company explained there is a median number of potential stories at 1,500 that users can see daily. Facebook inserts about 300 of these based on an algorithm that guesses how interested you would be in the post by factoring in user's reactions to previous posts and the users in question. Each post is given a score and placed on the News Feed according to that score. The most likes and comments people make, the more data Facebook has to work with.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has often referred to the News Feed as a personalized newspaper. One way the site picks up older stories and puts them at the top of one's News Feed is through a process called "story bumping." This moves older stories to the top because they were "below the fold" and might have been missed.
What's the reason for the site's sudden transparency about how it formats a News Feed? The site hopes to make some of these details a bit more public in order to put down the wave of concerns and controversy that comes every time the developers make an update or change to the site. If people have a better knowledge of the minds behind Facebook, they might be more patient with updates and changes. The site has even started a new blog for the sole purpose of explaining any and all changes to the News Feed.
With the story-bumping feature, Facebook developed and tested the system over the course of three months. Initial in-house estimates showed it to be a very popular system amongst users.
The full details of Facebooks algorithmic breakdown can be found HERE.
