Many Facebook updates are met with resistance from the site’s users. A recent feature to receive this treatment – the news Ticker – seems to have caught the social network’s attention. Starting now, some Facebook users are noticing the ability to hide the Ticker.

The news Ticker is a constantly updating feed that sits in the upper right corner of Facebook’s homepage. Part of the backlash was that many of the same stories appeared in both the News Feed and Ticker.

Offering the ability to hide the Ticker is great news for individuals that prefer to avoid excess noise on the homepage. However, despite distractions, the Ticker is an important part of the new Open Graph ecosystem, which lets people share what’s being read, listened to, watched, and so on.

As more Facebook Actions are introduced, it’s possible that the Ticker will be filled with more relevant actions – other than Like – including “run,” “cook,” and so on, which allows the News Feed to feature posts that have been actively shared by friends or Pages.

Facebook has yet to comment on if its entire user base will receive this ability. It’s possible that it’s just testing the option to see how many people actually hide the module so it can determine what improvements need to be made. In the mean time, this means that the News Feed has become even more important to brands, so make sure you beef up your content strategy.

[Via: Inside Facebook, Image credit: fallwithme]