Facebook Intends To Turn Its Main Feed Into A Discovery Engine For Video Content

A new memo being sent out by Facebook to its internal workforce has delineated some major plans that the company has in terms of its video content. In case you weren’t already aware, the leading social media app is getting great feedback on its stories and reels.

Therefore, it makes absolute sense for the company to make the most of these brilliant engagement stats and take things to the next level.

Think along the lines of the app turning its main news feed into an area that is nothing less than an exploration engine entailing all sorts of video-based content.

Thanks to The Verge, who managed to get a copy of this internal letter and even managed to publish it publicly as a whole. In case you’re wondering why the dates are a little off, well, it was first sent out on April 27 but put out publicly only today.

Therefore, you can only imagine how the tech giant must already be well on its way to executing its plans for the upcoming term, keeping this theme in mind. Moreover, we just might end up witnessing these little amendments being rolled out at the nearest date.

The whole concept is to give rise to a platform where people can simply get the best recommendations for all sorts of trending content that’s in demand and something that all can enjoy.

As you can imagine, the app has enlisted its top priorities which will be Facebook Reels, creating state-of-the-art technology for recommendations, and also unveiling the world of sharing that’s based on messaging.

But where does the term discovery engine fit into all of this? Well, that has to do with one simple thing- putting out recommendations for fabulous content that a user isn’t linked with.

By nature, we’ve seen the company put content that’s recommended by friends or a user’s close social circle at the top of the list. These are the first priorities and that makes sense. But now, ‘unconnected content’ is being stressed, which is interesting because that’s never been done on the app before.

Users’ feeds will now feature all sorts of discovery options that are related to pulling content from all corners of the network.

Firstly, Facebook realizes how much it's lacking in terms of bridging the gap between users and short video-based content like Reels. So, to help counteract that gap, we’re going to be seeing the company turn its Reels into something that can be discovered more easily on the website.

To help fulfill its priorities of being a leading discovery engine, the app is looking forward to creating the best recommendation system that caters to people’s needs and interests. It needs to also be able to delineate what content is trending and also allow users to make the best selections based on this new system.

Lastly, Facebook wants to bring out the content that users are sharing through their private DMs and make sure that happens more publicly on the feed instead of through its messenger functionality.

Alison, who happens to be the author of the recent memo sent out to Facebook’s employees, was contacted to see how things are shaping up in this regard and how far along the app has come at reaching its new designated targets.

For starters, the future of Facebook is getting a revamping where the main news feed will be a blend of Reels and trending stores at the top. This will be immediately followed by a series of posts that has been recommended by the new system and will comprise content from both the app and Instagram too.

As you can expect, there will be a greater emphasis on visual content or should we say videos. Hence, more and more users would be willing to make direct shares with close friends through messages.

And for making the app’s messenger functionality a little more prominent, you will get to see the inbox on the upper right side of the feed. That in turn means integrating Facebook and Messenger into one.

The changes sound exciting but no date has been provided yet for this innovative transition. And if you happen to be an avid Facebook user, the best way you can prepare for this change is by putting out more short format visual content like Reels.


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