Did Mark Zuckerberg just accidentally leak the new newsfeed design? | Hacker News Reader

Did Mark Zuckerberg just accidentally leak the new newsfeed design?

sefsar.com

101 pointsyoussefs41 comments

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Does that even matter to anyone? Seems to me about as important as if someone had leaked a google-doodle.

No, this could change how you use Facebook. A doodle doesn't do that.

That is assuming we use facebook. I don't use facebook.

That said, this is somewhat interesting to me for 2 closely related reasons:

1) I like to know how the "big boys" think and it's entertaining to see the moves they make competitively.

2) Since the "big boys" are so influential, the moves they make could in turn affect my business decisions in the near future.

Wow, you don't use facebook. Good for you, But 500 million other people in the world do. That makes it a fairly big deal, love it or loath it. And as you so rightly just pointed out, this may in turn affect the way everyone else does business.

Did the way you use Facebook change significantly last time they changed the layout of the news feed?

Yep. I'm commenting on and liking all sorts of things I'd never have seen before the mini-feed in the top-right corner was introduced.

For me it didn't change my behavior, but that's not the point. I think the fact that Facebook may emphasize the search functionality more does mean something. As you know there's this thing called affordance.

It did for a lot of people, indeed... Differences in click-through are quite measurable for us (a Facebook app provider).

The Ticker, specifically, proved to be a huge surprise, with click-rates higher than the regular click-rate of a Facebook Ad!

It's all speculation, but I would say the search box getting larger (so as to look like Quora) does mean something, as in they might be pushing for search, which would be interesting.

yeah, the Quora idea is quite possible. Where search drives the interactions. As I wrote, search is something that’s totally under-realized on the Facebook platform. There is no way to search and filter content.

Maybe they'll roll out a HUD like the next version of Ubuntu?

There's a very common misunderstanding among normal users that websites can't really look different for different users. Facebook has corrected that a bit, users now know that features might be rolled out in stages, but they still cling to the misunderstanding that if someone has a feature, they will get it eventually.

And hence this article: Zuckerberg has extra features, therefore everyone will get these extra features. It's pure speculation. A more likely explanation is that he has a special version with a lot more controls that are relevant to him.

Just as likely, he reviews a lot of prototype interfaces, most of which never see the light of day.

True, but... If there are thousands of prototype interfaces in review why is Zuck using this one? This is more of a fun "What if?" then anything else.

What if Facebook jumped into search in a big way?

What if people used Facebook Search while they are on Facebook instead of jumping over to Google?

What if every website could use a Facebook Search plugin?

Facebook knows if they want to beat The Street, now that they are going public, they need to crank up the revenue machine. They want to make more money to make better products. Banners are not doing that, but search and an advertising network that would compete with Google in a big way would help them turn their 850 million users into a revenue powerhouse.

What if?

My logic was that, if Zuck is testing it, then perhaps it's a serious competitor to go live.

I agree.

This comment is here because the hacker news comment system is a great example of bad design.

Encouraging search will lead to more revenue.

Facebook's problem has always been that they are trying to convert passive users into active ones.

When you google for "watches", it makes sense to show you ads for watches; you've expressed your interest.

On facebook, you're interested in Fiona's party pics, not watches.

By increasing the focus on (social)search, FB are positioning themselves to take advantage of people expressing specific interests, instead of being as they currently are, passive users.

Yeah, but I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook were planning to expand their partnership with Microsoft Bing either.

Downvote this comment if you must, but I have to say it:

Meh.

Should have used the image enhancement software that people use in the movies, hard to see anything now.

From what I've heard is that Facebook employees essentially used a custom Facebook that's integrated into their actual work and work environment. My guess would be is that is what we're seeing in this photo.

If I was zuck, I would totally have my own version/skin.

Would you really? Not sure about that, I imagine he believes in the public product. However, if something is being tested on his account, then it's possibly quite a strong contender for release(?)

I agree with youssefs, too. It makes sense that he would use something that everybody is using and testing the latest experiments on top of the public build.

Yep. Here's a quote by George Clooney about a conversation he had with President Obama.

"I talked with the president at one of those fundraisers some months back, and I asked him, "What keeps you up at night?"

And he said, "Everything. Everything that gets to my desk is a critical mass. If it gets to my desk, then no one else could have handled it."

I don't know what you mean, but are you really comparing Zuckerberg to a President?

If you're not trolling, he means those at the top have their problems filtered for them. The stuff that get to them are mostly top priorities.

Comparing the head of an organization to the head of a state is fair in this kind of context.

Yes.

He is president to the 850 million strong citzizens of Facebook abd that comes with great responsibility.

In anycase, I agree that the parent thread's analogy might be off a little

You my friend have far too much time on your hands!

At this stage nothing is leaking "accidentally". Facebook has gone through enough press cycles, feature releases, competitive responses, etc., that anything you are seeing is carefully crafted. Even if it has the look of an ad-hoc casual internal-only just-for-my-friends feel.

The userspace reactions to even minor changes and features are predictable.

To me it looks like he has no blue bar on top at all and has in fact just scrolled down a bit. The white part is a browser tab.

I don't think so. The ticker on the right suggests the bar is part of the Facebook site.

This is a good catch. This is almost certainly a development version of facebook that gets rolled out internally before it hits the world, or even A/B testing.

maybe it was just admin view?

I wonder if they would be interested in buying out Greplin (greplin.com) If they are moving in that direction.

Could Facebook ever challenge Google as the place where people do their searches?

Hypothetically—and with much more compelling brand pages than are around at present—Facebook could replace much of the web.

Why go on a brand's website when you could just go on their Facebook page?

The feed itself still has a long way to do. I want to try a Timeline feed.

He just has user styles and scripts applied, he knows to code, right? :-)

You could at least make photos bigger. Now it's impossible to see.

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