Facebook is believed to be launching a redesigned app, with confirmation that there will be changes to be made to News Feed for both the mobile and desktop versions of the social network at a press event on March 7th.
Following the initially outrageous introduction of the Timeline to our profiles and the recent arrival of Graph Search (which is still in its trial stages), Facebook looks to refresh the News Feed and bring consistency to its ‘three pillars’, as creator and CEO Mark Zuckerberg refers to them.
The main News Feed has not been significantly changed for several years and this revision should allow pictures to be viewed as large previews and annoying adverts are said to no longer crop up uninvited. Instead ads will be reserved to the sidelines, allowing photos to dominate the feed, which may even do away with the blue and white colour scheme if recent testing by Facebook is anything to go on.
The new photo-oriented News Feed might also give a little more movement for Pages – and area in which Facebook has been criticised as trying to cash in on by setting fees for anybody and everybody with a non-profile based social presence to get more exposure, regardless of whether they are in support of business, a non-profit cause or other. The issues with the way Pages are handled was raised by a number of high profile page owners including Star Trek’s Mr Sulu, George Takei, who commands a 3.6 million following on Facebook.
For mobile socialites, the Facebook apps for Android and Apple iOS will also receive a full overhaul, reducing those blue bars and white, allowing our posts to make the best of all the available space.