Facebook targets Twitter with latest makeover

The Facebook homepage is changing again, this time to allow users to see constant updates from their contacts.

The refresh should stop the firm losing users to the increasingly popular Twitter. At a press conference on Wednesday, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said that he admired the micro-blogging site because it can connect with people so quickly.

"We must build Facebook to give everyone the power to share anything they want and connect with anyone they want," Zuckerberg said in blog post following the event.

"The way we're doing that is to first extend people's ability to connect with everything that interests them, and to give people a way to get updates from all of these connections. Then we're going to increase the pace of the stream, so you can immediately see what is going on around you."

Facebook has created new public profiles to which users can sign up to receive constant news feed updates from organisations or public figures, as they do on Twitter. A new homepage design due to be rolled out next week will also let users immediately see everything that is shared by their friends.

To showcase the new public profile feature, Facebook has partnered with a number of renowned individuals, including Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, along with news agency CNN and rock band U2.

The update follows the collapse of Facebook's attempt to buy Twitter last year. The deal fell through because of a disagreement over the market value of Facebook, according to an interview given by Facebook board member Peter Thiel to Business Week.

Facebook has received generally positive feedback from users in response to the announcements. A previous site redesign caused uproar, and led to over a million users petitioning against the updates.