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Time of India
21-04-2025
- Business
- Time of India
'Cultural Relevance Lost': The Worrying Problem that continues to trouble Facebook
Internal emails from Meta executives have revealed growing concerns over Facebook's declining cultural relevance, highlighting the company's struggle to keep the platform engaging amid shifting social media trends. According to a report by TechCrunch, the revelations, disclosed during Meta's ongoing antitrust trial, show that CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his team have been grappling with ways to modernise Facebook's user experience. The decline of Facebook's 'Friends' model One of the key concerns raised in the emails is Facebook's reliance on its traditional 'Friends' model, which executives now consider outdated. Unlike platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and X, which prioritise 'Following' over direct friend connections, Facebook's structure has remained largely unchanged. Zuckerberg acknowledged that 'friending feels out of vogue', citing stale friend networks and the friction of sending friend requests as barriers to engagement. The idea of deleting users' friend lists In an effort to restore Facebook's relevance, Zuckerberg even floated the idea of deleting users' friend lists entirely and allowing them to start fresh—a proposal that was ultimately dismissed due to its potential risks. Instead, Meta has introduced a revamped Friends tab, aiming to centralise friend interactions and make connections more meaningful. A push for 'OG Facebook' During Meta's Q4 earnings call in January, Zuckerberg outlined his vision to bring back 'OG Facebook', focusing on features that once made the platform a cultural powerhouse. The company hopes that refining its approach to social connections will help reverse the decline in engagement and restore Facebook's standing in the competitive social media landscape. Despite these efforts, Meta continues to face challenges in adapting Facebook to modern user preferences.
Forbes
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Facebook's Newest Feature Might Make Me Want To Use It Again
Facebook is going old school with its latest update: a Friends tab that only shows updates from ... More actual friends. Four days ago Facebook introduced a brand new feature that's actually kind of old: the Friends tab. It's a tab that … wait for it … only shows updates from your actual Facebook friends. If you thought that was kind of the idea of a social network, you've likely been dissatisfied with your social media options lately. As Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg referenced when he announced the new feature on his personal Facebook account, it's OG Facebook: social media like it was back in 2006. I've been playing around with it for a while, and it just might make me want to use Facebook again. And apparently, there's more where that update came from. 'The new Friends tab is a throwback to OG Facebook when you only saw friends' status updates,' Zuckerberg =AZVGeX0-4OIP6p3yocr-Vj1LrQm3KD56P0TH1FzYmPh7mKMRThecNCmq1qiW-mHVYaOMeSNSTQeQ_BolYfV7cpfIZxdo6yT0Lxd-WKhlznZfD5uMHupOrJPt7D5ZZT-ngZbjpnZIZ7xrIMZWv1nuTqcO&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R">says. 'More OG Facebook coming soon.' Like many in my friend group, I've been increasingly disenchanted with a social network that seemed to show nothing from my actual friends. As I scroll the default tab of Facebook right now, the third item is People You Might Know. The very next one is a post by a politician I do not follow: essentially a free ad. The very next item is an actual ad for a flight club, followed by two updates from friends, yet another ad (this time for a car), a friend's post, and then some influencer's post with video of the US president talking about Ukraine and 'the rare earth deal.' Scrolling farther, I see updates from groups I do not follow (hello, The Onion and The Liberal Agenda, plus Meanwhile in Canada and The Guardians of Democracy, among others) more ads, posts from news organizations I do not follow, and yes, a few lonely friend updates mixed into the mess. In other words, the social network that I use to stay connected with friends has perhaps 30% friend content at most on the default feed. That's abysmal, if you're looking to use a social network … as a social network. The new Facebook Friends tab, which only shows content from people you've chosen as friends on the ... More platform. The new Friends tab is the second from the left at bottom, and it changes all of this. At least 90% of the content in the Friends tab is actual, real, true friend updates, interspersed with the occasional bit on friend requests and 'people you may know.' Facebook is still kind of trying to trick you, however. As usual, when Meta releases a new product, the ads don't surface until much later. (Think Threads, where I'm still not seeing ads.) The new Friends tab doesn't have a lot of ads yet. In fact, I still haven't seen an ad on the Friends tab, which makes the experience amazing, in fact. But that will not last, of course. The first hit is free, as per usual, and after the honeymoon period, ads will intrude into the Friends tab too. However, it's still going to be a better experience than all the unwanted groups, public figures, and influencers intruding into the main Facebook tab. It's clear why Facebook did what it did to the main tab. Political discourse and curated most-engaging content that makes it out of the Darwinian struggle to be seen on the multi-billion-personal social network is probably more likely to grab the average person's attention over Uncle Bob showing off his new lawnmower. Getting more users, getting them to spend more time in the app, and showing them more ads is how Facebook makes more money. The problem is that those of us who don't go to Facebook to see the latest political 'news' from your friendly neighborhood outrage factory, or what Random Nature Group 3 just posted, would rather just see what our actual friends and relatives are up to. After all, that's arguably the primary purpose of a social network: not the news, not the blather, not the noise. Judging by the reactions to Zuckerberg's post, many agree. 'I just can't wait for this OG comeback,' says Aku Sunshine. "It's been long overdue." 'By OG you mean how it should be,' says Rich Steele. 'That's a great throwback!' says Leona Scott. '98% of my newsfeed is just ads and influencers I don't follow and don't care about,' says Jenny Lynn, highlighting the need for the new Friends tab. 'If I want to see friends' posts I have to navigate to their pages individually. Facebook has become too time consuming and exhausting. No wonder so many people are leaving the platform.' I'm sure the very reason Zuckerberg and company released the new Friends tab is that they saw people spending less time on the platform as well as using the Friends-only view that you could previously get on the desktop web version of Facebook. And that their hope is to keep those of us who liked the old version of Facebook better on the platform, one way or another.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Facebook Adds ‘Friends Tab', Nodding To Its Roots: 'Social Media Should Be More Social'
Facebook is adding a 'Friends tab,' a feature enabling users to focus in on posts shared by their friends and family members. The new initiative enables Facebook to invoke its early mission from two decades ago, even as it continues pushing aggressively into AI, algorithmically recommended content and branded fare. More from Deadline Ad-Supported Streaming Tiers Gain Traction, FAST Fascinates Gen Z And Millennial Viewers - Study Meta Agrees To Pay $25 Million To Settle Donald Trump's Lawsuit Over Account Suspension Meta Q4 Beats On Top & Bottom Lines Amid AI Jitters, Reported Legal Settlement With President Trump In its earliest days when it was incubated by founder Mark Zuckerberg in his Harvard dorm room, Facebook had a central goal of connecting people with their classmates, friends and family members. Over the years, as the social network's reach extended to billions of people around the world, it saw strategic benefit in automation. When it began pumping recommended posts into user's feeds several years ago, the move initially prompted backlash before the effort was dialed back and somewhat refined. Debuting today in the U.S. and Canada, the new Friends tab provides an experience made up of content from users' Facebook friends. It is available initially through the navigation bar on the home feed and can be accessed in the 'bookmarks' section of the app. 'Formerly a place to view friend requests and People You May Know, the Friends tab will now show your friends' stories, reels, posts, birthdays and friend requests,' the company explained in a blog post. 'Social media should feel social.' The Friends Tab isn't an either/or proposition, and will coexist with more recent forms of content distribution. Within the Friends Tab, users will see only posts recommended or shared by people in their network. Outside of the tab, content will circulate as it has been. The goal is to at least offer a taste of what members of the senior management team have dubbed 'OG Facebook.' The tech giant rebranded as Meta Platforms in 2021, reflecting its aim to transcend the social media brand that started it all. 'Connecting with friends has been a part of Facebook since it launched,' the blog post said. 'Over the years, Facebook evolved to meet changing needs and created best-in-class experiences across Groups, Video, Marketplace and more, but the magic of friends has fallen away. We'll be adding several 'OG' Facebook experiences throughout the year.' Best of Deadline '1923' Season 2 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Come Out? Which Colleen Hoover Books Are Becoming Movies? 'Verity,' 'Reminders Of Him' & 'Regretting You' Will Join 'It Ends With Us' Everything We Know About Amazon's 'Verity' Movie So Far
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Facebook debuts a revamped Friends tab as part of its return to 'OG' Facebook
After teasing a return to "OG Facebook" earlier this year, the social network on Thursday announced an update that will give users a simple way to connect with friends. The company is introducing a new Facebook Friends tab that will only showcase updates from friends, without any other recommended content. Meta explains in a blog post that the idea is to bring back features focused on Facebook's original mission of connecting people with friends through a social networking experience. The tab, which is initially available only in the U.S. and Canada, will feature friends' content, including their posts, Reels, stories, birthdays, and friend requests. Previously, the tab had only provided a place to view your friend requests and other "People You May Know." The company in October launched a Gen Z-focused redesign of its flagship social network, hoping to attract a younger crowd that has largely abandoned or ignored Facebook in favor of other social apps, like Meta's Instagram or TikTok. Those earlier changes focused on connecting users to community information, Facebook Groups, and video. However, in January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company's Q4 earnings call that a 'return to OG Facebook' was part of his key goals for 2025. 'I think there are a lot of opportunities to make [Facebook] way more culturally influential than it is today,' he told investors, adding, "I think some of this will kind of get back to how Facebook was originally used back in the day." The CEO didn't say at the time what sort of changes would be in store, but the Friends tab update is the first of many that will roll out this year. In a blog post, the company admitted that the social network needed to return to its roots. "Over the years, Facebook evolved to meet changing needs and created best-in-class experiences across Groups, Video, Marketplace and more, but the magic of friends has fallen away," the post states. The new Friends tab is available through the navigation bar on Facebook's Home Feed and will be accessible through the Bookmarks section of the app, the company says. Users can also opt to pin their Friends tab to their Home Feed to make it even more convenient. To do so, click Settings & Privacy > Settings > Tab bar. You then can choose to customize your tab bar and can pin the new tab there. Sign in to access your portfolio
