Facebook just released a new tweak to its News Feed algorithm that turns it into a better curated stream of updates from your favorite people.
The most important—and most welcome—addition is the ability to prioritize the friends and pages you first see on your feed. Think of it as Facebook’s version of Myspace’s Top 8, only instead of 8, you get to choose 30 of your best friends.
The new settings are rolling out slowly. Once they’re available for you, head over to News Feed Preferences and tap on a friend’s photo to start seeing their content above everyone else’s in your feed, beginning with stories they’ve shared since your last visit to the site.
Updates that have been prioritized this way will have a visible star icon on the top-right corner of the posts, so you’ll know right away why they’re there.
Greg Marra, Facebook’s News Feed product manager, told Mashable that the feature mimics the News Feed’s existing “unfollow” function, which lets you hide certain people and pages from your stream.
Through Facebook’s new News Feed menu, you can also discover new pages to follow based on pages you already like and pages that users similar to you have liked. This includes pages that don’t necessarily have a big following, which might otherwise fly under your radar.
The new update also lets you easily unfollow people and pages and reconnect with people you’ve previously unfollowed.
Currently, only iOS users have access to the new News Feed Preferences menu—which is under the “More” section of the Facebook app—but the company said that it will roll out to Android and desktop users “over the coming weeks.”
H/T Facebook Newsroom | Screengrab via Facebook/Vimeo
