When Facebook rolled out a number of new features in September, there was one in particular that struck a nerve with users—the updated News Feed that “predicts” what posts you might consider most important and prioritizes them at the top.
Facebook said the redesign was heavily influenced by the “smart lists it rolled out a week earlier, which placed friends into groups automatically. The News Feed redesign was supposed to help Facebook users keep up with the people that mattered the most.
Instead, in typical Facebook-user-fashion, everyone hated it. And until now, there wasn’t anything you could do about it, like most Facebook changes.
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Six weeks after the launch of the News Feed redesign, Facebook is giving back the option to view the most recent stories in your News Feed first.
To do this, select “recent stories first” from the new “Sort” filter that will appear at the top of your News Feed. If you click on “Highlighted Stories First,” you’ll see the top stories at the top. If you don’t have this option yet, Facebook Engineering Manager Mark Tonkelowitz says you can expect to see it in the coming weeks as the rollout continues.
Facebook also appears to be slowly rolling out new buttons to the Ticker that let you read content or listen to music. A content button will appear to the right of the ticker story for news items; hovering over it will display the word “Read.” Clicking on it will bring you directly to the article.
The same goes for music—a musical note symbol will appear next to a song; hovering over it will display the word “Listen.” If you click it, Facebook will take you directly to the song.
Currently when you click an item in the Ticker, a new window will pop open; from here you can click the link to bring you to the piece of music or content. The new Ticker buttons will streamline the process of jumping to music or content.
