socialrosiechen: Facebook is testing a News Feed for loners

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Facebook is testing a News Feed for loners

Friendless Facebook user 'hotlou' seems to have picked up on a new Facebook feature! Unfortunately, other than the picture above, I don't have much to report.

Facebook had a little to say to Business insider: "This is a test we're running to a small percentage of users who have very few friends on Facebook. This is simply to help them discover interesting content and create an instantly valuable experience for them."

We can see from the picture (helpfully annotated by 'hotlou') that these friendless Facebookers no longer have the option of 'Top news' or 'Most recent' -- instead, they will be presented with a News Feed showing the most-liked and most-commented items on Facebook. It's a bit like Twitter's trending topics even...

What I want to know is where the 'cut off' for this new feature lies. I have 150 friends (which I've always thought as quite low!), but I don't have the option of seeing this new feed. Is there anyone else out there that can see the new feed -- and if so, how many friends do you have?