Subject areaChannels and tools
Also known asNews Feedcontent feed
A feed is the list of updated content a person receives without having to look for it.
The word has two uses. In the web of the 2000s it mainly meant the RSS feed (the format a website uses to distribute its updates), which a program collects and displays by date. On social media it means the column users scroll through on the main page.
The step that matters is the ordering: on social platforms it is usually decided by an algorithm (an automated calculation procedure), based on the behaviour of the viewer, so a brand reaches only part of its followers. In the European Union the Digital Services Act (the EU regulation on digital services) requires the largest platforms to offer at least one recommendation option that is not based on profiling.
Source: Regolamento (UE) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act), articolo 38.
An example
When Facebook introduced News Feed in 2007, the home page became a continuous stream of updates from contacts. From that moment a company publishing there competed with the reader's friends and family for the same space.
Related entries
broader entriesthis entry and narrowertwo levels down← up · → down
Enrico Giubertoni. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may quote, translate and adapt this entry with the author’s name and a link, stating any changes. For commercial use, write to info@enricogiubertoni.com
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