By You might have noticed a new mysterious icon floating around your Facebook feeds.
The rocket shape logo, which sits between the news feed and friend request logos on the Facebook mobile app, has recently cropped up on most people’s Facebook.
If you click on the rocket, it takes you to a whole new news feed that looks suspiciously similar to Snapchat’s Discover tab. Earlier this month, several Android users reported seeing a similar icon pop up on the mobile app at random times. This was part of the testing phase that’s being going on for two-years up until yesterday’s launch.
The new feature runs in a similar fashion to Explore on Instagram, it’s a feed that contains content from pages you like, as well as content from pages you don’t that the algorithm thinks you’ll enjoy.
“We are testing a complimentary feed of popular articles, videos, and photos, customised for each person based on content that might be interesting to them. We’ve heard from people that they want an easy way to explore new content they haven’t connected yet,” a Facebook spokesman told WIRED.
If you’re currently not seeing the new icon, don’t fret. I’ve updated the app a few times this morning and it’s still nowhere to be seen, but given the huge press and generally positive response it’s very likely we’re all going to be seeing the rocket in the coming days. That means users will permanently be given two options at the bottom of the app: ‘Home’ and ‘Explore’.
‘Home’ will continue to be home to posts from your friends and family; whereas ‘Explore’ will use the Facebook algorithm and general technological genius to work out the kind of written and video content you might like to… well, explore.
A Facebook statement earlier this year teased the idea of this second News Feed. The ‘Explore’ feature is in response to user demand for more ways to discover interesting content.