The Facebook Blog

Fueling up...

It's been awhile since our last Hackathon (the night of our now-epic f8 launch) and we were about due for another one. So last Tuesday night, we rallied the troops -- a lot of new faces! -- put down the guitar hero, cranked up the Daft Punk, and coded into the wee hours of the morning.

...brainstorming and coding. (Photos by Wayne.)

The projects we came up with this time ranged in their target audience from all-encompassing to extreme niche. It didn't matter, as long as it had an epic code name. From Shogi to Props, Ladder to Team... America, we cranked out a ton of new ideas and applications, some of which just may see the light of day.

As usual, Red Bull and Chinese food kept us going, and we went out for celebratory pancakes afterwards. Keep your eyes peeled in the next few weeks for little things here and there.


James Wang, an Engineering Team Lead, was proud to work on Scriberr for the night.

Ever since we launched News Feed, we've been receiving a lot of suggestions on how to make it better. We've heard ideas like, "Show me fewer stories about wall posts," or, "Show me more stories about my roommates," or, "Show me more stories about wall posts and fewer stories about my roommates."

In the face of all this feedback, we've drawn one simple conclusion: everyone wants something a little bit different out of his or her News Feed. To help you out, starting today you'll be able to customize the selection of stories displayed in your own... News Feed by visiting your News Feed Preferences page.

There are two main ways to express your preferences:

First, we've got a mixer-style control that you can use to prompt us for more or fewer stories of a certain type. If you crank the "Photos" setting to the top, the next time one of your friends uploads a new photo album, there's a good chance that you'll see it in your News Feed. Similarly, if you drag the "Groups" setting to the very bottom, we'll try not to show you any stories about friends joining or leaving groups (unless there's just nothing else going on). If you leave all of the settings around the middle, then you'll continue to get a variety of stories like you do today.

The "More About These Friends" and "Less About These Friends" lists help you see more about the people you care about most.

Second, we've provided a couple of friend lists for you to fill out. Maybe you have a group of friends who are traveling across Europe right now, and you want to keep tabs on what they're up to. If you add them to your "More About These Friends" list, we'll do our best to keep you informed on their latest adventures. Or maybe one of your friends is dominating your News Feed by always writing boring notes on what she ate yesterday; if you add her to the "Less About These Friends" list, we'll try not to subject you to any more of her culinary ramblings.

Note that these controls will have the greatest effect when there's a lot of activity by your friends on Facebook. On a slow news day, you'll probably see most of the stories going on around you, regardless of what preferences you've expressed.

Finally, rest assured that your News Feed Preferences will be visible only to you. We hope these controls help you enjoy your News Feed more, and please help us out by continuing to send us any questions or suggestions here.


James, a Facebook Engineer, hopes he hasn't discouraged anyone from writing more notes about last night's chicken nuggets.