Facebook Just Admitted Its News Feed Algorithm Sucks
Yesterday, Facebook announced that users could pay $7 to promote important posts to their friends on Facebook. One of the things I highlighted in that article was how Facebook uses an algorithm to determine how prominent your posts are in your friends News Feeds. One of the core pieces of functionality of the Facebook News Feed is to make sure you see important posts by your friends.
So by Facebook coming out yesterday and saying that now you can pay $7 to promote posts to your friends, it says one of two things:
- The News Feed algorithm is broken and it isn’t doing it’s job of getting important posts/posts you would care about in front of you.
- Facebook is looking for alternative revenue streams as investors take a hard look at whether or not the company is worth investing in.
Or maybe it’s a mix of both things. I just find it weird that now the company is asking users to pay to promote posts that they want more friends to see, when in reality, that’s exactly what the News Feed is supposed to do for you (for free). If your friends aren’t seeing your update about getting engaged, there’s a fundamental problem with Facebook.
If Facebook’s News Feed was working optimally, you wouldn’t have to pay to share engagement or wedding photos with your friends, as they should have seen them. This is worrisome and makes me wonder now what exactly have I been missing out on?
Are you planning on shelling out $7 to promote your posts to friends? I’m not.