Domesticated animals eat feed. Day after day, the farmer fills the trough with the same oats, the same feed. As we lie in sleep, our sidecars charge, our prostheses: computers, tablets, smartphones. Receptacles for the news feeds, charging to accommodate relentless scrolling throughout the day. Everywhere, silently revving for the coming feeding.

With so many people on Facebook every day, for so much time, and most of them looking out for news, how news appears on Facebook clearly matters, a lot.

Is this creepy or helpful? You check out a pair of shoes online, and suddenly - there they are in your Facebook news feed. That's programmatic marketing. Or, you're a mom and you bought a new stroller at Babies 'R Us and now you see an ad for birth announcements from a company like Shutterfly.

Yeah, it sees you looking at this, too.

Television is sooooooo 1999.