Once it is clear that it is a filtered feed, the platform goes from absolute (THE newsfeed) to relative (A newsfeed).

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Lightt is conceived as a platform that can grow rapidly and feed other applications.

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But it was as necessary for these new changes as the news feed was for the original platform.

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LinkedIn released several content-related products last year, such as an updated home page and news feed and a new publishing platform for "influencers" like Virgin Group's Richard Branson, all geared toward keeping users on its site.

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Once the feed was established, Facebook could launch its platform the following May.

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Sanghvi, who will report to Dropbox CEO Houston in her new role, was the first female engineer at Facebook and worked on products including News Feed and led product management for products including Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect.

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That Facebook would look to Home, a seemingly mobile-native implementation of the social network, as the framework for its platform going forward is unsurprising -- changes recently made to News Feed were done specifically to adapt it to the smartphone space.

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