Compared to other apps, Facebook can seem downright antiquated. One blogger described it recently as “a dopey website that sucks to use and look at.” Facebook seems to be aware of this problem, and is now reportedly testing an interface tweak that’s so aggressively dumb I sincerely hope they go for it.
Don’t like looking at News Feed anymore? Well what if those musty-arse News Feed posts were crammed into Stories, the hipper, Snapchat-like video thing Facebook added to all its platforms. That’s the premise of an experimental feature discovered by app researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who shared images of the unholy News and Stories hybrid (Snewstories Feed?) on Monday.
Facebook is testing to turn News Feed into Story Feed pic.twitter.com/83H7VWcgmD
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) April 15, 2019
“This integrates Posts and Stories into one, allowing users to consume both within the same reel of content,” tweeted Wong, who discovered the prototype inside Facebook’s Android app, according to TechCrunch. “This UI also shows the regular Sponsored Posts like how the News Feed would.”
Wow. Incredible. This is the kind of solution you’d come up with if Mark Zuckerberg gave you exactly one minute to think about it. “Hmm, it seems the people who like watching two-second videos aren’t staring into the bottomless ad pit,” a baby or high-level tech executive presumably said. “I know, let’s pump the ads into the video place!”
This UI also shows the regular Sponsored Posts like how the News Feed would pic.twitter.com/yvnKlMoVLi
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) April 15, 2019
Of course, as an unreleased prototype feature, there’s no guarantee Facebook is actually going to release this chimera of content both old and new into the world. I, however, pray that they do. How else am I going to know who updated their profile picture or what cola to buy while watching random clips of my friends?
Also infecting the only part of Facebook that some people like with all the stuff that they don’t like could be the motivation some users need to finally log off.
Say what you want about Facebook, but it’s always innovating. Sure, many of those innovations consist of ways to further monetise its captive user base without enabling too many awkward human rights violations—but that’s capitalism, baby! And while maybe we aren’t getting the features we want from Silicon Valley’s enormous advertising surveillance schemes, we’re certainly getting the ones we deserve.