Facebook promises less clutter as new-look news feed unveiled

It plans to roll out the new design slowly over the coming weeks on web and mobile. These design updates will be available first on iPhones and iPads, followed by Android soon after.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the redesign of Facebook's News Feed should make it function like a really good local newspaper.

He said: "What we're trying to do is give everyone in the world the best personalised newspaper we can."

The redesign changes the way that users see news feeds and introduces four new kinds of feeds and as part of that, a great emphasis is being placed on images, which get their own feed for the first time.

The first new feed is 'All Friends', which offers a feed showing users everything your friends are sharing. Next is 'Photos Offering', a feed with nothing but pictures from friends and the pages that users have liked. Then comes a separate music feed featuring posts about the music being listened too, and finally, a 'Following' feed that comprises the latest news from pages that  people like and the people they follow.

These changes mean that users will still see all the stories that were in their News Feed before, but with a fresh new look. Facebook said it has completely rebuilt each story to be much more "vibrant and colourful" and designed it to highlight content that friends are sharing.

The changes bring the desktop version of Facebook and the mobile version closer together. The new look means that Facebook now looks and feels the same on mobile, tablet and the web. This means, for example, that the left-hand menu is accessible anywhere users go on Facebook.

These latest changes are designed to encourage users to stay on Facebook for longer and also mean much greater visibility for ads. Facebook will be hoping this means a lot more advertising revenue.

The new design sees Facebook take things it has learnt from the mobile and bring it to the desktop, which will now more closely mirror Facebook on mobile devices, where the social network has proved very successful from an advertising point of view.

Andreas Pouros, COO at digital agency, Greenlight, said: "Facebook has taken the success of advertising in peoples' newsfeeds on mobile and based its News Feed redesign on mirroring that format (or close to it) on all devices – this should boost revenue."

For marketers, the changes will also mean a great focus on visuals. Advertisers will be allowed to use much bigger pictures to make their content more enticing.

As well as bigger images, advertisers will also get access to bigger videos, which can be played without clicking away.

Jordan Stone, strategy director, at We Are Social said that Facebook was trying to be more relevant for consumers with its "personalised newspaper" look.

Stone said: "It has been designed to encourage people to spend more time on the platform. It does look more aesthetically pleasing and user friendly – everything is bigger and there is greater consistency between mobile and desktop experiences. And it also offers much more control of what you see, letting users zero in on friends, photos, music, etc."

For brands, Stone said that the increased visibility meant that brands needed to be more relevant than ever.

"They still need to work hard to make the experience more immersive and engaging. A stream of irrelevant content or ill-conceived sponsored posts will be noticed quickly by consumers," he said.

Follow @gordonmacmillan

This article was first published on mediaweek.co.uk