Facebook is looking at ways it can keep feeding news updates to its users when there is a slower mobile connection.
In a blog post Wednesday night, Facebook announced it was testing out features that could be used on a slower connection or even when a user is offline.
When dealing with a sluggish connection, Facebook will load the user’s previously downloaded stories which haven’t yet been seen, and rank them on the person’s news feed based on each one’s relevance. The company is also factoring in whether each post has an image accompanying it.
In addition, engineers who work for the social media giant are looking into how they can keep stories up to date throughout the day, using better internet connections as an opportunity to retrieve and deliver new articles to each user.
“These changes will help anyone who is on a poor Internet connection — even those whose network connectivity is generally good but who have intermittent connections in places like subways and tunnels, or at large events,” the blog post said.
In January, Facebook quietly rolled out its “Facebook Lite”: a stripped down version of its mobile app that works with those who have older mobile models in emerging markets.
In September, more than one billion people used Facebook’s site every day on average; however, the firm is determined to expand its brand in several emerging markets, including India and China. “(Facebook) has this big initiative to get everyone on the internet,” Santosh Rao, head of research at Manhattan Venture Partners, told CNBC last month. “They want to increase the content, they want to be everywhere where the users are and with good content and good ads out there.”Recommended
CNBC Staff