How Facebook's overhaul helps your business — and hurts it

Many marketers are salivating over the revamped news feed. But not so fast...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveils Facebook's new look, March, 7.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Mark Zuckerberg and a cast of designers and engineers debuted sweeping changes to Facebook on Thursday, in what's been billed as the most dramatic overhaul to the social network in years. The new image-heavy Facebook puts big, high-res photos front and center, retooling an otherwise ugly, text-laden interface into something more modern — a next-gen Facebook with design nods to Tumblr, Instagram, and Pinterest. (Take a visual tour of the changes here.)

On its face, marketers love it. The new Facebook gives business an alluring new canvas to play with — digital billboards up and down a billion news feeds. "Historically, advertisers want really rich things like big pictures or videos and we haven't provided those things," said Zuckerberg in a Q4 earnings call. Now that's no longer the case.

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Chris Gayomali is the science and technology editor for TheWeek.com. Previously, he was a tech reporter at TIME. His work has also appeared in Men's Journal, Esquire, and The Atlantic, among other places. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.