Thanks to the open-source Network Collection Class developed by Facebook, the News Feed can now load stories more efficiently despite a user’s connection speed. This latest News Feed retrieves stories onto user devices with the 2G cellular connections more common in developing countries as opposed to the 3G/LTE network that the current News Feed requires.
As one of the most visited sites worldwide, Facebook is currently handling 1 billion users in a 24-hour period, and due to its vast popularity , the company’s Emerging Markets team is working on reaching its next billion users. The recently developed Network Connection Class minimizes interruptions by determining the users connection strength and tailoring how their News Feed loads accordingly.
On a poor or particularly congested connection, this News Feed will display previously cached stories that will include the updates on comments and likes of a post. It will prioritize which stories to load based on the speed of a connection until the user can connect again and update their newsfeed. It will also load text-based posts instead of video content, and display a lower-quality JPEG as a full quality image downloads, instead of simply displaying a blank screen. This latest version can now retrieve more stories and images for users to scroll through while the user is reading through the News Feed.
To expand its reach, Facebook is working to optimize its performance by getting users from all over the world easy access to their News Feeds independently of their cellular connection speed. The purpose of this latest News Feed update is to allow for a seamless connection regardless of the user’s devices and whether they have a 2G, 3G or 4G mobile network.
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