Facebook's face-lift brings more feeds Video

Facebook's face-lift brings more feeds Video Transcript

Facebook gets a facelift. I'm Bridget Carey and this is your CNET Update. Facebook is changing things up again. The social network is rolling out a new look for the homepage news feed that clears out some of the side clutter and makes photos, posts and activity much larger with more imagery. So, if you share a story, you're gonna see a larger thumbnail and a larger headline. If you check into a location, a map will show up. Facebook feels that bigger is better, of course that also means advertisements will also be larger, but first, let's break down what's changing. You still have the main news feed. But since the main news feed only shows you selected highlights, now, you can toggle between more specific fields to get every post. There's an All Friends feed that will show you every single post from your friends in chronological order. But there's also a following feed for all the news outlets, personalities and companies you follow. The photo feed shows every photo shared and the music feed will show everything related to music and the musicians you said you liked. And all these changes will be the same on the desktop website as in the mobile app. In fact, the main website redesign was inspired to be more like the app experience, with a site navigation bar that slides out. It's nice that Facebook is clearing up the side bar clutter for a fresh presentation but the feeds are the bigger deal here. With several feeds to scroll through, you'll stay on the site longer, engage with more posts and of course, run into more advertisements in the process. If you want to be among the first to get this, go to facebook.com/newsfeed. There have been a few other social media updates. The Twitter app has a new feature called Top Tweets. When you search for something, it'll recommend a tweet it thinks is popular. And Foursquare just updated the iPhone app, making it easier to check into places. When you see a list of venues to check in at, you just press and hold on the name of the place and then you're instantly checked-in without the prompt to have to write something about the place. Now, of all these Facebook changes have you annoyed, there are alternatives out there. Take for example, Path. Path is a social network designed for you to share updates with only the people closest to you. You're limited to 150 friends within the Path network because the point is to only share with people who actually care about what you have to say. What a concept. Well, Path just got an upgrade and lets you have a private chat between multiple friends and you can send messages in new ways, like with a voice, a location map, even cute stickers, but you gotta buy those stickers. A post on Path can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Tumblr. So, you can still reach out to those wider networks. That's your Tech News Update. You can find more details on these stories at the blog cnet.com/update. From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey.