Facebook rolling out new updates

Facebook, the world’s largest social network, has rolled out a series of wide-sweeping updates. The updates come at the same time as Google+ is opening up to the world and include giving priority to important posts on the News Feed, larger shared images (plus the ability to upload larger files) and a real-time conversation ticker.

Referring to the opening up of Google+ , Facebook product manager Keith Schacht said, “As Mark [Zuckerberg] put it, this is launching season. This is an update we have been working on a long time, unrelated to anything else.”

He reiterated that the social network had been focusing its efforts on allowing members to have greater control over how and who they share information with.

Facebook recently added a subscribe button, which lets members follow other users much like they can on Twitter. Facebook followers can find strangers and receive updates, sharing information and interacting with them like they would with their confirmed Facebook friends.

Another addition includes selective updates regarding the user’s personal news feeds. Referring to these updates specifically Schacht said, “Last week we announced (Smart) List and Subscribe, which were about more control of what members see in the News Feed.”

“Today, these changes are about letting people see the most important news,” he added.

Speaking about a new feature which would display noteworthy feeds on a user’s profile if they had not checked their Facebook for a few days, Schacht said,”If you didn’t read the newspaper for three days, then on Day Four you pick up a newspaper how awesome would it be if the front page summarised the news from the past three days?”

As for the new chat panel, users will be able to actively engage with their friends via their updated posts. “Ticker is about real-time exchanges with friends.” When the annual developer’s conference takes place this month in San Francisco, more features are expected to roll out. Updates will be rolled out to users during the week.