For most of Facebook's history, its executives have tried to mimic the success of other people.
On Thursday, the company, which has been renamed Meta, continued that tactic with a redesign of its main Facebook app that will make it more like one of its largest competitors.
A feed with photos, looping videos and status updates from a mix of friends and family will be included in the new Home tab. A variety of posts from people and pages unrelated to a user's network will be labeled "Suggested for You" in the Home tab.
The category will be based on what Facebook thinks someone might want to see, based on thousands of individual information signals and the user's browsing history on Facebook. Facebook uses artificial intelligence to power the discovery engine.
The Chinese-owned social media app is called TikTok. While Facebook has historically connected people to content produced by their friends, the video based TikTok relies on algorithmic signals and viral content to show viewers highly engaging posts, without having to rely on someone's network of friends or connections.
Meta is trying to get more people to use its social apps. Meta has promoted video products across its platforms in recent months, with the company adding more suggested content to keep users engaged and return to the app. The formula seems to be working on the photo sharing site.
The Home tab is similar to a popular social media trend known as discovery, which uses machine learning to better understand the types of content a user may like and serve it up without the person working hard to find it. There is a lot of investment in that area by Facebook and other companies.
TikTok has become a social media phenomenon because of its emphasis on discovery. Hundreds of millions of people have used TikTok over the past few years. According to some estimates, young people watch TikTok for more than 90 minutes a day.
Pressure has been placed on Meta's family of apps. The share of younger users moving to TikTok and other up-and-coming social media apps has become a concern for its executives.
Product changes that follow competitors have been made. Reels is a short-form, looping video product similar to that produced by TikTok.
Users should expect to see more short-form video and reels in the home tab as the company refines the algorithms and improves the discovery experience. Photos from pages and groups that a user does not follow can be included in home content.
The new Feeds tab gives users the option to only view content from friends, family, and certain pages. Under the Feeds tab, people can see posts from friends, posts from groups they belong to and pages they subscribe to, or a stream of everything combined and posted in reverse chronological order.
The Feeds tab will allow people to have control over what they see.
He said that one of the most requested features is to make sure people don't miss friends' posts. There is a personalized feed on the Home tab where our discovery engine will recommend the content we think you'll care most about. The Feeds tab will allow you to modify your experience further.
Over the next week, the Facebook app will be updated.
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