Facebook Introduces 'Friend Bubble' Feature For Friends To Discuss Reels They Like Together

Meta has announced a slew of updates for users with the most prominent one being a new "Friend Bubbles" feature where Facebook users can see what their friends like.

The feature will display which reels and posts a user's friends have liked which pop up as bubble-like icons containing their profile photos much like Instagram. Except now they can now tap on the bubble and enter a group chat with them to discuss the post/reel that they all liked.

“Seeing likes from your friends has always been core to the Facebook experience, and we are continuing to build features – like bubbles – that bring us back to our roots,” Meta says.

The company said in its blog post that AI-powered search suggestions would also pop up when viewing certain reels so users can find similar content without having to manually search for them by leaving the video player.

The social media company also updated their recommendations engine, showing 50% more reels from creators published on the current day, so users see newer content faster.

Meta is also finetuning users' recommendation engine by letting users click “Not Interested” on a reel or flag a comment that they personally disapprove of and the recommendations engine will act on these inputs and personalise their reels feed.

The 'Save' feature will also serve a similar purposes, with users being able to use it to group their favourite reels and posts in one place, with the algorithm taking note of what is being saved so it can recommend more content of the same type.

"You’ll help Facebook fine-tune your recommendations with each save, resulting in a more tailored experience that we’ve seen lead to increased watch time globally," the post said.

The Verge reported that Facebook was taking these measures in order to compete with the short form video app TikTok. Meta also saw an increased time spent by users on videos by more than 20%, according to a recent earnings report.