Facebook keeps tweaking its platform quite often. Some of the changes immediately draw our attention and some don’t.
And then there are some changes under the hood, say the recent update to News Feed algorithm which brings focus to posts from your friends and families instead of posts from business (Pages).
Today, we list some of the key changes that Facebook made it to the platform that may have gone unnoticed.
Facebook Marketplace
Facebook began testing Marketplace, its exclusive platform for selling and purchasing items in India, last November. Marketplace is now widely available in India as more and more users have received the feature. Similar to OLX, Marketplace allows users to sell, browse and purchase items within their own community. There are various categories under which products are placed, and you can also set the area radius for the items.
In case you’re wondering, you must have seen a new icon shaped as a shop. On desktop, you will see this icon on the left bar just below Messenger.
On the iOS and Android app, Marketplace icon is placed at the menu bar.
Groups
Facebook for Android has a new ‘Groups’ feature which is also located in the menu bar on top. This new feature essentially gathers all your groups under one umbrella. Here, you’ll find the groups you’re a member of and the recent activities. You will also see suggestions to join similar groups.
In fact, Facebook now allows users to share a status directly with a Group or co-share the status with the groups you have joined. This feature is currently available only for the Android app.
The missing case of the ticker
Ticker, the real-time updating column on the right hand side of your Facebook home-screen (Desktop), was silently removed. According to reports, the feature was disabled roughly a month ago.
This ticker would show which posts your friends have liked and commented on. The decision to remove ticker may have been taken in the wake of growing privacy concerns on the social networking platforms.
Revival of the poll
Facebook recently re-introduced its Polling feature for its users. Similar to Twitter’s polling feature, Facebook’s new feature is a rebranded version of its ‘Questions’ which was disabled a few years ago. You can conduct your own poll by choosing the option under the ‘Write Post’ option.
Stories are everywhere
Facebook introduced Snapchat-like Stories on the platform last year. Since then Facebook has been working to make the feature more engaging to its users. While the feature was initially available to mobile users, it has been now rolled out to desktop users. Among its efforts to popularise this feature, Facebook introduced cross-posting Instagram Stories.