Social networking site to give users more tools to customize what information they see.
NEW YORK Facebook is revamping its home page and plans other changes so its millions of users can more easily choose the types of information they see.
Facebook said Wednesday it will let users follow public figures like President Obama and swimmer Michael Phelps and bands like U2, and even institutions like The New York Times.
Facebook's fan pages currently work as static destination sites for anything from bacon to Coca-Cola to Jane Austen. The social-networking site will eventually make them work more like profiles, which individuals can now continuously update by posting photos, links and other tidbits.
Beginning next Wednesday, Facebook will also launch a redesigned home page that lets users receive continuous updates from their friends instead of every 10 or 15 minutes.
It is also adding filters so people can choose which of their friends to keep up with and which to silence, limiting news from tiresome or annoying acquaintances you don't necessarily want to “de-friend.” Currently, people can choose to receive less information about certain friends but can't silence them completely.
Facebook will also tweak its central feature, the status update, which now invites people to broadcast to their friends a response to “What are you doing right now?” Responses can now range from mundane to poetic to uncomfortably personal.
Facebook's new question, “What's on your mind?,” may encourage people to dig deeper into their subconscious and post more entertaining updates than “Kevin is updating Facebook.”
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