Facebook Rolls Out 'Explore Feed' to Site's Mobile and Browser Versions; New Feature Looks to Be Ad-Free for Now
Facebook has started the official rollout of their new "Explore Feed" feature, a feed of posts and links customized for each user. The new content stream can be viewed on the desktop and mobile, and it rolled out last Wednesday, Oct. 18.
The alternate News Feed, based on content that a user is currently not following in his or her scope of friends, was being tested by Facebook as early as February this year. The new feed seems to be free of ads and promoted content as of the moment as well, as Ad Week notes.
As an alternative to the ad-ridden main feed, the new Explore Feed seems to be Facebook's way of broadening the content that reaches their users. The articles and links in the alternate stream, however, can be hit or miss, since they are selected by an algorithm that tries to match a user with Facebook posts based on their past likes and shares.
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"We are beginning to roll out a complementary feed of popular articles, videos, and photos, automatically customized for each person based on content that might be interesting to them," a Facebook representative announced.
"We've heard from people that they want an easy way to explore relevant content from Pages they haven't connected with yet," the spokesperson added, as quoted by 9 to 5 Mac.
Users may start to encounter a module note linking them to the new feed, with a message encouraging them to explore new content via Explore Feed.
"Looking for new posts? Discover what's going on outside your News Feed," Facebook calls out in their note to desktop users. Facebook users who are on the social media platform via their web browser can also find the new feature tucked in the "More" section of the left-hand side menus.
For mobile users. they can find the new feed under the "More" menu in the bottom navigation part of the app. Roll-out has already started worldwide, although it may take a few days for the feature to land on every Facebook account.
