Facebook News Feed Tracks Time Spent On Every Story

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Facebook announces the latest iteration of its News Feed will track the amount of time user spends on a particular post.

The company will be using this data to suggest you posts that you would really like to see.

Instead of relying on explicit methods –  “Liking” and “Commenting”, the social networking behemoth will track the time user spends in reading every post to figure out what he might really be fascinated by.

Making the use of robust machine learning algorithms, Facebook is going to separately learn each user’s intrigued posts and show relevant posts in the feed thereafter.

Facebook’s previous machine learning algorithm showed posts according to user’s interest only if he liked or commented on a particular type of post.

Giving away these old school methods, Facebook will see how long each story clutches user’s interest.

Facebook says, “just because someone didn’t like, comment or share a story in their News Feed doesn’t mean it wasn’t meaningful to them,”.

However, this approach comes with challenges as the algorithm has to safely distinguish why a user spent long time on a particular post. Was it because he was really interested or because of slow internet connection.

The company announces it has already started rolling out the feature and will continue over the next few weeks.

We do not expect Pages to see significant changes in distribution as a result of this update, adds Facebook.

This new approach will be welcomed by everyone as it will show just what the user wants to see.

About the author

Nitika

Nitika Munshi

Nitika is an MCA graduate and works as an all-around news writer at PC-Tablet. In free time, she works on Photoshop and plays GTA V on her Xbox. A tech-enthusiast at heart, she explores ways that businesses can leverage the Internet and move their businesses to the next level.