Kurt Wagner says, “In early 2013, a group of Facebook engineers visited Africa to test its mobile app in poor network environments. The results were predictable, and frustrating for Facebook. The app crashed regularly, photos wouldn’t load, and one engineer used his entire data plan simply downloading and updating the app from the app store. Simply stated: “Our apps basically sucked,” said Jay Parikh, Facebook’s global head of engineering, onstage at the company’s first @Scale engineering conference Monday”. Facebook Will Never Perfect Mobile — And That’s Okay Re/code  [...]

Selena Larson says, “Maybe you told Facebook why you hid an ad in the past, but the social network didn’t really use that information to change the ads it showed you. That’s changed. On Thursday, Facebook announced two new updates that are meant to help show people “better,” ads—as in, advertisements you might actually click on, thus providing better service to Facebook advertisers. Facebook has provided the option to hide ads by clicking, “I don’t want to see this,” just like any other post, for years. But the company is now using information gathered... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Let’s say you want to post a special offer on your business’ Facebook Page, but you don’t want the evidence to stick around forever. Currently, you would have to manually delete the post, but that could be changing. Facebook is running a test on a small number of users’ iOS devices that gives them the option to schedule deletion of posts in advance, giving them set choices from one hour to seven days. As reported first by The Next Web, several users noticed the new option and tweeted screen grabs”. Facebook Is Testing A Way For Users To Schedule Deletion... [...]

Seth Fiegerman says, “Facebook is quickly transforming into FaceTube. Facebook revealed on Sunday that its users have viewed an average of 1 billion videos each day on the social network since June. Roughly two-thirds of those views are happening on mobile. “The goal of News Feed is to deliver the right stories to the right people at the right time, from the people and things you care about,” Fidji Simo, Facebook’s project management director for video, wrote in a blog post. “And more people than ever before are seeing, sharing and expressing themselves with video on... [...]

Jenni Ryall says, “Facebook now has 100 million users across Africa, the company announced on Monday. This figure is half of all the Internet users in Africa, which sits at 200 million people. More than 80% of Facebook users are accessing the site from a mobile phone, showing high-growth countries are more connected than ever before. Facebook engineers started tweaking the company’s Android app earlier this year after a trip to Africa revealed that the app was loading very slow, and the lack of memory on the devices resulted in constant crashes. The team members also burned their monthly... [...]

Seth Fiegerman says, “Facebook is now part of the elite $200 billion club. Facebook’s stock opened at $77 a share on Wednesday, pushing the company’s market cap above $200 billion for the first time. That’s roughly double what Facebook’s market cap was when it went public in May of 2012. To put that in context: Facebook’s market cap is now higher than IBM ($192 billion), Amazon ($158 billion) and Pfizer ($186 billion). Of course, it still has quite a way to go to catch up to Microsoft ($370 billion), Google ($397 billion) and Apple ($605 billion)”. Facebook Market... [...]

Martin Beck says, “More than 400 million people interact with Facebook events every month, the social network says. And today, the company announced that it’s giving Page owners another avenue to reach those people. Facebook has enabled ads for events to be placed in mobile and desktop News Feeds. Previously, event ads only were available for display in the less prominent right rail on the desktop platform. Here’s a Facebook mockup of how the ads, available globally through the Ad Create tool and the Power Editor”. Facebook Adds Ability To Advertise Events In News Feed Marketing... [...]

Jason Abbruzzese says, “Facebook wants to bring emerging market mobile advertising up to speed — by making speed less of a factor. Facebook has launched a new option that allows marketers to target certain types of smartphone network connections, a move aimed at improving its advertising offerings in emerging markets. “Optimizing the creative — for instance, targeting a video campaign to people with high-speed connections, and swapping in an image or link ad for people with slower connections”. Facebook Bolsters International Ambitions With New Ad Option Mashable  [...]

Jason Abbruzzese says, “Facebook’s pitch on its News Feed rankings has been consistent: It wants you to be on Facebook, therefore it is in the company’s best interest to make the content you see on the site as good as possible. That is the general rationale that emerged after Facebook announced on Tuesday that it would begin to factor in time spent into its News Feed rankings. The social network openly admitted that the change has been made in an attempt to eliminate clickbait — stories that offer little information but entice users to click. The pages are sometimes misleading... [...]

Jason Abbruzzese says, “Facebook is tweaking how stories appear on its News Feed in an attempt to minimize “clickbait,” or headlines that attract users to click on a story that may not offer much substance. The social network revealed the change in a blog post on Monday, citing continued pressure from users to present better content in the News Feed. To do that, Facebook is employing a metric becoming increasingly popular across the Internet: time spent on page”. You Won’t Believe This: Facebook Tries to Weed Out ‘Clickbait’ Mashable  [...]