Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Facebook Launches Its Complementary Newsfeed Page on iOS Devices

Rocket icon
The dedicated team behind Facebook is always in the process of creating a great user experience through innovation. For some Facebook users the addition of a new ‘rocket icon’ may have raised eyebrows as to what it could possibly be. Although Facebook page has featured news feed icon, the rocket icon is another addition to that concept. What the rocket icon does is provide users second news feed page that directly link to stories, blogs, feeds, photographs, and such from various other sources that you may have missed.

The ‘rocket icon’

The intention here by the developers, was to enhance the already present newsfeed feature by adding this second rocket icon. The second icon basically, links many other sources of text and images relating to an item or subject you were looking at.

The position where this icon appears is dependent on the operating software of the device. Devices are primarily operated by iOS or Android, which decides the icon’s appearance on the top or bottom. However, Facebook has not yet confirmed this to be a permanent feature of this popular social media platform. It is currently experimenting on presenting a substitute News Feed page.

This secondary page will consist of videos, photos, articles, and posts from a variety of sources, even those that are not followed by the user.

Available through an update 

This new ‘rocket icon’ is available on both Android and iOS apps, and this secondary news feed displays content chosen by Facebook for the user. A spokesperson of the company recently stated that it is going to be a complementary feed of trending photos, videos and articles, but will be customized for each person.

This means that no two users will have the same content displaying on the ‘rocket icon’ page. Now, that’s definitely something Facebook has never attempted before. It is recent in the tweaks and changes Facebook has made and this has got people thinking over what else the company has planned.

Experimenting with new feature 

The company has a history of experimenting with new and improved features and if these tests become successful, the features are finalized. The ‘rocket icon’ is a completely new Facebook feature, and only after testing the popularity, will it be finalized.

This new feature is similar to Instagram’s explore page, which displays content that the user has not expressly liked, but might be interested in. however, the company believes that this new venture will be successful as many Facebook users recently have been in the asking for something new and exciting.

All the contents displayed on the ‘rocket ship’ newsfeed will be similar to the pages that the users have already liked. It will also showcase contents that are trending in the social media world, and things that are popular amongst your friends.

However, this is not something completely new, as Facebook has already tested this format using a small square icon, that was only available for Android Beta users. The rocket icon is not a limited version and is available on all devices operating on iOS and Android.

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