Facebook is announcing a host of updates to its platform today, many of which focus on pushing users outside of their social bubble of friends and family.
Among the updates are new tabs being added to Facebook that are meant to surface more content for users, including recommendations based on a person’s location. A new “Local” tab will collect content from other Facebook surfaces like the resale platform Marketplace, local groups, and events — essentially what sounds like Facebook’s version of Nextdoor. The Local tab is being tested in 10 US cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Austin, Texas.
Facebook will also begin testing an “Explore” tab, which sounds similar to the Instagram feature of the same name: a personalized page with recommended photos, videos, and other content that is unique from person to person. The company says the Explore tab will be based on a user’s interests and will surface content from “real people and expert communities” like travel tips and DIY tutorials.
Another new tab takes aim at TikTok. Facebook is adding a full-screen video feed that resembles TikTok’s For You page, pulling together short, long, and live videos in one place. For the last several years, tech companies have chased TikTok, introducing more shortform video content and recommendations-based feeds. Facebook says young adults on the platform now spend 60 percent of their time watching videos, and it promises a “turbo-charged” recommendations algorithm in this new feed. In other words, this is Facebook’s attempt at a hyperpersonalized For You page.
Messenger is also getting a major update in the form of Messenger Communities, a feature that resembles Slack or Discord. With Communities, users can create multiple chatrooms based on different topics that fall under a larger umbrella: for example, an incoming college class group with different chats for announcements, campus news, or student clubs. These chats can be created without having a Facebook group that members are a part of.
The rise of TikTok has moved many social media platforms away from showing users content posted by their friends, family, and existing networks and toward content shared by accounts they don’t follow — what an algorithm predicts they might enjoy. For the last few years, Meta, too, has signaled that it’s moving in this direction both on Facebook and Instagram, where the amount of recommended content has steadily been increasing.
