Facebook users: Get ready for more changes

Then came Wednesday, when many users woke up to find their homepages altered, with what Facebook calls “top stories’’ on the top of their pages, followed by “recent stories’’ listed in chronological order. On the right side, meanwhile, there’s something called a “ticker,’’ a live feed of all the ongoing activity that also appears in users’ news feeds. It’s a kind of Facebook inside Facebook, if you will.

By mid-morning, the words “new Facebook’’ quickly became one of the most discussed topics on Twitter. Many comments were negative, though some pointed out that Facebook makes many changes to its site and people eventually get used to it.

Then there were the jokes. John Kovalic from Madison, Wisconsin poked fun at Netflix’s recent public relations fiasco, tweeting: “On the plus side, at least the new Facebook isn’t calling itself “Qwikface.’’ (Netflix, for those who missed it, is facing a big backlash from its subscribers because it raised prices and renamed its popular DVD-by-mail service “Qwikster.’’) Another online critic liked Facebook to a pop star who’s addicted to cosmetic surgery.

For its part, Facebook has long asserted that it makes changes to keep users engaged, and that those alterations are often based on user requests. Other tweaks derive from the company’s study of activity on Facebook and what it thinks people will enjoy using. Privacy advocates, meanwhile, have contended that Facebook changes its site in order to get people to share as much as possible about their habits, hobbies and likes —all to give advertisers a better picture of who to target.

In reality, it’s a little of both. The way Facebook sees it, the more people enjoy using the site, the more time they’ll spend there.

The latest changes are “tailored at making sure this news feed is what you want to see,’’ said Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering at Facebook.