Facebook has updated the News Feed users see stories they actually read, rather than stories they just like, click, comment on, or share. The company cites examples such as a serious current event that users might want to know, but might not ‘like’. The social network will essentially use Instant Article metrics to judge how much time users actually spend on an article after the content is fully loaded. The change also factors in how much time people spend reading an article on a mobile web browser, although it's not clear how this is done. Other than this, Facebook will also show articles from a more varied choice of publishers, reducing how often people see posts from the same publisher in a row. Other changes to news feed: In September last year, Facebook introduced 360 degree videos in its news feed, where various publishers, organizations or individuals would be able to publish 360 degree videos. In March the same year, Facebook had introduced an embedded video player, a new social plugin that would enable publishers to embed native Facebook videos in a video player. Messenger bots: Earlier this month, Facebook opened its Messenger Send/Receive API that supports bot development on its chat platform to all developers. The API can be used to provide various kinds of bots on Messenger, including for weather, traffic updates, shopping receipts, shipping notifications and live automated messages etc., which users can access by interacting with services that provide them. Earlier today, Messenger rolled out audio…
