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Facebook lets some users hide the Ticker

After months of complaints, Facebook is giving Ticker haters an option they really want. If you don't want the Ticker, you can hide it completely. If you want to see the Ticker, you can show it again.
Written by Emil Protalinski, Contributor

While writing about the gaming changes Facebook recently made, I noticed that I could suddenly completely hide and show the Ticker. All the IPO news kept me busy throughout the day, but I did want to write something not related to financials before turning in tonight.

Anyway, it seems that not all users are seeing this new option. As you can see in the screenshot above, Facebook is now letting some users completely hide and show the Ticker whenever they please. Previously, the social networking giant only let you adjust its size.

Facebook started rolling out the Ticker some five months ago. It's essentially a real-time stream that runs concurrently and just to the right of the main News Feed. The Ticker is supposed to show you all the new status updates, Likes, comments, photos, and so on that your Facebook friends are making, as they're making them. A month later, the company started pushing ads in the Ticker and then eventually pushed it out completely, along with its updated News Feed.

The Ticker was embraced by many, but as with any change Facebook makes, many users hated it. It got to the point that I wrote an article titled How to get rid of the Facebook Ticker. If Facebook keeps the option to hide the Ticker for all of its 800 million monthly active users, then I won't have to bother keeping that article updated.

Last month, Facebook started moving the Ticker for some users and completely removing it for others. Clearly something wasn't working right with the Ticker and the social giant was experimenting with what to do with it.

I don't think Facebook will kill the Ticker completely, but if it finds that users are hiding it a lot, the company may decide to replace it with something new. If that happens, it won't be for a while, as I'm sure Facebook wants to see how users react to stories related to the new Open Graph apps when they're seen in the Ticker.

I'm not sure when this option appeared nor do I know the percentage of users who have it. Can you hide your Ticker?

I have contacted Facebook and will update you if I hear back.

Update: "We are giving users the option to turn off ticker so they can better manage their screen space when using Facebook on a smaller display," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. "We are continually making improvements to our products based on user feedback."

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