Facebook is constantly working to develop its offering to users. Very often these are the focus of big announcements, such a the global roll out of Stories, a feature that we have had in Ireland since January. Sometimes, however, features appear with little explanation and this is one of those.
A number of users, from different parts of the world, have reported a 'rocket' symbol next to the news feed button.
Rocket icon? 🤔 Hints, anyone? #facebook #icon @facebook pic.twitter.com/v9TLkmYmsv
— alice baraldi (@alice_ba) February 26, 2017
Facebook has unveiled it is trialling a second news feed option for users, which will help users discover new content.
“We are testing a complementary feed of popular articles, videos, and photos, customised for each person based on the content that might be interesting to them,” a spokesperson said. “We’ve heard from people that they want an easy way to explore new content they haven’t connected with yet.”
This is similar to the 'Explore' tab on the Facebook-owned Instagram. 'Explore' shows users photos from accounts they may not be following. These posts are selected automatically based upon the people you follow or the posts you may like.
Facebook has confirmed that an expanded test of the second news feed is now underway in markets around the world.