A couple of months ago I found myself online, browsing for movies to rent. There are lots of tools to find new movies or rediscover old ones. As I poked around, I thought, "People should really be able to do this with Pages on Facebook!"
If we could create a fun way to browse movies, TV shows and musicians, it would help people more easily express shared interests and keep updated about those interests. I did a quick sketch of what this could look like and started discussing the idea with a few people, including Ziqing Mao, an engineer on our... team.
Move Fast and Like Things
Ziqing told me he'd been playing around with a similar idea, and our mini team of two quickly began working together on this idea. Over the next few weeks we designed, built and iterated. Eventually we had a working prototype that was fun to use (always a good sign when building something new).
For example, I went to the Page Browser and noticed that the TED conference had a Page on Facebook. I loved watching the conference's videos on its site and decided to "like" its Page. Liking it meant that not only was I telling my friends that I'm into TED, but I also started getting great video recommendations from TED in my News Feed that I enjoyed. Of course, if I didn't want the updates I could always hide them as well.
Let the Exploring Begin
So, with a couple more weeks of iterating and lots of help from others, we're now ready to release the Page Browser. We've even added a couple fun things like a way for you to discover interests from other countries and a way to see which of your friends is most similar to you.
As with all experiences on Facebook, the Page Browser will continue to evolve as we get feedback from you. For now, we hope you enjoy connecting with your interests and maybe even find a few new ones.
Ben, a designer at Facebook, likes "This American Life," TED and "Dirty Dancing."
