Back when Facebook first released the “live feed” a few months ago, many users noticed that the feed was not really in real-time. Previously, FriendFeed was the only service that could display real-time feed display. However now that Facebook acquired FriendFeed, they’ve also figured out how to actually make the feed real-time. While they may not be using the FriendFeed technology for this, it’s a great upgrade.
One of our readers, Shaun McLane, noticed that the feed was now real-time and sent us a video of the update. We also went ahead and published a screencast below of the feed scrolling in real-time. While many users are experiencing technical issues with the new feed, the streaming version is a welcomed addition for many of those who were bored with a static feed.
Personally, having constant updates became annoying once the novelty factor wore off for me and after hundreds of people, the live updates were what made FriendFeed less useful for me before. On Facebook however, most people are not friends with thousands of people so having feed overload in the real-time feed is probably not as big of a risk.
Do you prefer viewing the feed in real-time or do you prefer refreshing the page?
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You can choose open with “Status Updates” in Top, and you get the old version.
Move “Status Updates” to top.
Comment by Teresa Rosas — October 26, 2009 @ 6:54 pm
No, that just gives you status updates. The old feed had a lot more than that. (For the record, I’m very happy with the new feed — it brings back all the stuff they stopped showing us after the March redesign.)
Comment by Facebook User — October 26, 2009 @ 7:26 pm
I like the Live Feed. And I agree with you, that if you have less than 500 (or 1,000) friends, it’s probably not that big an issue. It’s not as bad/drastic a change as the last one, which I did not like at all (though I have no idea now what the “old” Facebook was like! I’m used to this current incarnation).
Comment by Maria — October 26, 2009 @ 7:29 pm
Facebook actually had a Live Feed tab in News Feed from September ’08 to the launch of the redesigned feed in February ’09. That tab streamed in stories into the feed as they happened.
Comment by Tom Whitnah — October 26, 2009 @ 7:58 pm
My live feed (and I know the difference between the “live feed” and the “news feed”) is only live about 30% of the time. The rest of the time it will show me something that someone posted two minutes ago… followed immediately by something someone posted a day ago. This is highly annoying. I keep track of all of my friends’ updates and posted links with the home feed. :p
Comment by Carmen A — October 26, 2009 @ 7:59 pm
It doesn’t seem to be streaming for me, I always have to click to load new stories (Google Chrome). May just be a technical issue, though.
Comment by Navarr Tethyr Barnier — October 26, 2009 @ 8:00 pm
Thanks for posting guys.
I had to hit refresh to get the streaming to work. When I clicked “Home” on fb, it wouldn’t work. I’m using a beta build of Firefox (minefield), so maybe that makes a difference, but I don’t think so. If it’s not working for you, try hitting refresh.
Comment by Shaun McLane — October 26, 2009 @ 8:06 pm
I’ve refreshed numerous times (FF 3.5.3) and I’m not seeing any auto refreshing of posts. I have to do it manually. I am really missing the “Load New Posts” link… thankfully the iPhone app hasn’t changed (yet).
Comment by Amy Myers Lepre — October 26, 2009 @ 9:56 pm
On Twitter, I’m seeing increasing number of folks unable to access account due to site maintenance issues since Facebook rolled out new updateon 10/23/09. For some of us it’s been 3-plus days and many of us have political connections we use facebook for working.
Comment by Geri — October 26, 2009 @ 11:25 pm
Live Feed users have no way of filtering what goes into the feed. The increased noise makes it USELESS for any kind of business networking. People are very confused Facebook has ignored some critical user interface issues with this launch.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=176238016984
Comment by George — October 26, 2009 @ 11:54 pm
What Tom said. The feed was already there a few months ago… I’m not sure what the fuss is about. Actually I was bummed when they removed it way back then, and I’m more than happy now, seeing they realized it was a good thing. Actually, it’s the only way I can conceive a FB feed. (I understand that if you have thousands of “friend” it may become a problem, but that’s not the average, and with a few hundreds it gives no problems.
Comment by Facebook User — October 27, 2009 @ 6:15 am
the new facebook is a totally mess.
it sucks
Comment by luís miguel — October 27, 2009 @ 7:58 am
You can filter the live feed. Hover over the upper right hand corner of a post on say, Farmville, and choose “Hide Farmville.” Pretty simple. I think the Live Feed is great–I hated when they took it away, and am so happy it’s back.
Comment by Facebook User — October 27, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
When it works, I have no complaint. However it works only about 10% of the time for me. Most of the time my profile page shows me with 0 friends so that is probably why I don’t have anything showing on my live feed except for my fan pages. When my friends do decide to show up on my profile, I get them on my news feed. I think problems like this is what most people are actually complaining about – that their feed is not even working most of the time.
Comment by Pam — October 27, 2009 @ 3:23 pm
Excuse me but my live feed is not working at all. The only way I get "live" feed is constantly hitting the reload page. Please help as this is very frustrating. Worse than the old way ever thought of being. When I tried to contact Facebook, well good luck if you are going to contact them…there is no "contact us" on any facebook page I have seen. Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Comment by thecouger — October 29, 2009 @ 11:37 am
The "live feed" does not auto-update for either. I have to manually refresh the page every time to get any new content.
I am using OS X Snow Leopard with Firefox 3.5.4
Comment by Facebook User — October 29, 2009 @ 11:29 pm
I am growing tired of the "WTF FB UI Deployment Policy." I think their development roadmap got badly folded or something. The interface is not intuitive or consistently functional, the posts are not in chronological order (I should be able to at least select the order), there is too much noise and the only control is to hide friends or not hide friends. It is disappointing that all FB users are involuntary beta testers. Please, FB, quit adding crap and just make the UI usable! Should be called WTFB.
Comment by Jason — October 30, 2009 @ 8:46 am
No auto refresh live feed (most of the time) and news feed is all mixed up. Most of the people don t seem to have this problem and help is nowhere to be found. What a mess!
Comment by Facebook User — October 31, 2009 @ 12:18 pm