A Facebook logo on a computer screen is seen through a magnifying glass. (Photo : Reuters/Thomas Hodel)
Social networking giant Facebook announced that it is rolling out an update that will prioritize News Feed contents depending on user's Internet connection speed.
Facebook emerging markets product manager Chris Marra posted the announcement on Facebook's news room and it reads, "In order to make sure another billion people can connect using Facebook we need to design features of the product that work seamlessly regardless of mobile network and device. What this means for those of us on the News Feed team is making sure people can load and scroll through News Feed on any connection speed."
Tech analysts said that Facebook News Feeds are currently bloated with auto-playing videos, data heavy photo albums and contents that are extremely data demanding. This contents are essential for a more immersive and engaging social network experience. However, the downside of this is that it demands high speed Internet connection in order for them to load.
Despite the proliferation of high speed Internet access and 4G LTE connection, the vast majority of the world still runs on 3G and 2G connection.
According to PC Mag, the new update, users who are running on high speed Internet connections will see everything on their News Feed. On the other hand, users running on a slower connection, like Free Basics from Internet.org, will only see status updates and links rather than data-heavy contents like videos and high resolution photos.
Marra said that with this new update, users can continue browsing their News Feed on any connection speed without the lag and buffer usually experienced when data-heavy contents are being loaded.
