The new, decentralized platform could have many of the same features a news feed, group interaction, graphs but with a much-improved voting process for sorting through "fake news" and protecting personal data.
When I asked Avichal Garg, another product manager for Facebook's news feed, why my interaction count dropped so sharply, he said the company clearly needed to improve its algorithm.
The app has been completely rebuilt from the ground-up, and now introduces a number of new and improved elements, including better news feeds, social interactions, an improved sign-up process, and more.
Zuckerberg said that changes the company had made to the news feed to prioritise "meaningful interaction" rather than "passive consumption" were already having an effect – with a decline in people passively watching video.
Those Timeline photos specifically could get you to click through and leave some Likes that will notify that friend and get them to revisit Facebook, or publish news feed stories about your interaction with a Page which Facebook can make big money on through Sponsored Stories.
They allow advertisers to pay to turn the news feed stories generated by interactions between users and businesses into ads.
Tests that Facebook ran found the insertion of ads reduced comments, likes, and other interaction with news feed updates by 2percentt, a small decline that the company deems acceptable.
It shares certain principles with standard question-and-answer (Q&A) sites where users can create sub-communities relative to specific topics of interest (groups) and use features such as following other users or news feeds, facilitating stronger interaction between users.
Other readers' interests and comments that are similar to yours will also show up in your own news feed, as well as social interactions around news, suggested topics and more, aiming to create an ecosystem of real-time local and hyperlocal news.
For Facebook, Paper is essentially a re-imagining of its often-cluttered news feed, which acts as the main interaction point for most people on the social network.
But Facebook has also said that there has been a 2 percent drop in interaction on the news feed, and is now replacing free content with paid content, which means a large number of free posts will disappear from people's feeds as sponsored ads float to the top.
