Facebook tweaks home page based on feedback

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Story Published: Oct 24, 2009 at 12:15 PM PST

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Worried about missing a birth announcement, or details on what your portly uncle had for lunch?

Facebook is tweaking its home page yet again in hopes of making it easier to find information. Among the latest changes is a list of items you might have missed during those rare moments spent away from the online hangout.

The changes were rolled out Friday.

When you log in to Facebook you will see what the site deems the most interesting things that happened in the past day in the "News Feed." These could be photos, status updates or other items. As has been the case previously, what Facebook deems interesting to you will be based on what updates are popular with your friends or how close you are to the person giving the update.

"If the content has comments or 'likes' by 10 of your mutual friends, it's something that is important to you," said Peter Deng, a Facebook product manager.

After you've caught up, you can click back to the "Live Feed" you've had before and read updates from everyone on your friends list in a constant stream.

In another change, Facebook is integrating its "Highlights" feature from the right hand side of the page to the "News Feed" in the middle. The space it frees up will be used to feature birthdays and events more prominently — something Facebook says users had asked for.

And the site is restoring some features it had gotten rid of, such as posts on when your friend adds a new friend or becomes a fan of a brand or a celebrity.

"Nothing is going away," Deng said. "We are just moving things around."

That's important, because if past redesigns are any indication, change doesn't always go over well at Facebook.

Facebook has more than 300 million active users worldwide and about half of them log in every day. For many people, the site is becoming an important social hub for keeping up with friends and family.

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