Since News Feed launched last year, it has proven to be an extremely useful way to find out what is happening in your friends’ lives, both online and offline. But as the number of potential stories and story types grows, we wanted to manufacture certain you continue to see the stories that matter most to you.

that we launched feedback controls on all News Feed stories to allow users to tell Facebook what they think of a story. Did a specific story assemble you smile? Give it a thumbs up. Did a story irritate you? visit on the x icon and the story will be collapsed and your opinion will be used to prepare similar stories less common. News Feed will

use that feedback to further tailor stories for you and to identify the types of stories and applications you might like to see in the future.

News Feed will reply by duration to that feedback, but the response won’t be instant as the system needs day to learn and process the feedback info. We’re trying to manufacture feedback as useful and responsive as possible; so expect improvements to the feature itself. Keep checking back in and providing feedback and News Feed will continue providing the stories that matter most to you.

Tom Whitnah is a software engineer at Facebook and gives that story a big thumbs up.