For most of Facebook’s history, its executives have executed a tried-and-true playbook: Mimic the success of others.
On Thursday, the company, which has been renamed Meta, continued that tactic with a revamp of its main Facebook app that will change how users browse the service and make it act a bit more like one of its largest competitors.
Facebook users will soon open the app to a new Home tab that will feature a feed with photos, looping videos and status updates from a mix of friends and family. The Home tab will also show a variety of posts from people and pages unconnected to a user’s network, labeled “Suggested for You.”
That category will be driven by what Facebook’s algorithms think someone may like to see, based on thousands of individual information signals and the user’s browsing history on Facebook. The so-called discovery engine behind those algorithms is powered by Facebook’s artificial intelligence technology.
In short, the Facebook app will act more like TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media app. While Facebook has historically connected people to content produced by their friends, the video-based TikTok relies on algorithmic signals and viral content to show viewers highly engaging posts, without having to rely on someone’s network of friends or connections.