Is Facebook finally responding to the HUGE amount of backlash their users have been giving them over the past several months or are they changing the news feed to please their investors? 

Probably both.

If the end users aren't happy, they'll leave or slow their use down. If this happens, ad dollars dry up, and that eventually takes a bite out of the investors pocket. The pockets who still haven't seen a return on their initial investment from when the company went public.

Facebook officially admitted this week that it's losing traction with the under 21 crowd (I said that months ago... I live with one of them and the only time she gets on Facebook is when I send her something), and people are clearly tiring of not being able to see what they want, when they want.

As a personal user, we want to see what our friends are doing. The site and ALL of social media is built on the premise of engagement. So if I engage with you, that should be all the information Facebook needs to make sure that you are in my news feed.  We don't want to be manipulated or coerced into seeing updates, photos and information of things we're not interested in.

As a business users, our company has worked hard to provide good content that our clients and customers find interesting and entertaining. This has helped up increase our likes and lay the groundwork for building an engaged community. By liking my page, you have said to me "I like your business. I like doing business with you and am interested in what you have to say."  Facebook has said "not so fast!" WE will determine what you'll see easily and what you'll have to go after to see. Businesses already have a hard enough time getting their "fans" back to their page - usually only 5-10% of people who like a page EVER go back a second time. So to have Facebook play around with the ones that DO want to see our information is very frustrating for everyone.

So, I'm hopeful that with these changes that will slowly begin rolling out, we'll see a shift back to what used to be a good experience for most people (You can sign up for the new feed beta here.). But if I've learned one thing about Facebook over the past 6 years, it is that you should never get comfortable - it's a constantly changing force.

Did you catch any of the news today on the press release? Do you like the new look?