Facebook unveiled its new layout this past week...much to the dismay of many users. This backlash was demonstrated by the angry comments and protests, posted all over the social network giant's news feeds. Other creative users designed poignant, profile pics that raged against the Facebook machine. Shown below is one such witty design:
Not that all comments were negative though. Some users even defended the right of Facebook to change its layout, as it is a free site. Other users simply stated that they like the new layout and didn't understand the fuss. At the very least, the new layout seems to be quite controversial.
Some Notable Changes
Some changes of note are:
1. The addition of the News Feed 'Ticker' in the upper right-hand corner. It seems Facebook has tried to mimic social media rival, Twitter, by adding a real-time news feed stream, that displays the user's friend's activities.
2. Facebook have broken the News Feed into two categories: The Top Stories section and the Recent Stories section. There are also sub-categories listed on the left-hand side, that allow the user to break these streams down into even more categories, such as: Family, Close Friends, Schools and Regions. I believe this was done to combat the rising social site Google+, which allows users to break down "connections" into categories, such as: Friends, Acquaintances, etc.
3. Facebook has also displayed Pages and Groups down the side to make the site more easily navigable.
4. There was also an overhaul of the IM portion. It displays the user's Friends exclusively down the bottom right-hand corner. This was compared to the little bar that used to be there that was accompanied by a 'Face box' displayed on the left.
5. The email has been turned into threads. That means that every correspondence between users is displayed, in a never ending list.
6. Facebook Pages has changed, as well. They have added a Friend Activity tab that displays recent interactions between a page and its Fans.
7. Another addition is the Recommendations tab on the right, that allows Fans to write recommendations for the page. As well, there is a Recommended Pages tab that suggest pages for the admin, based on the liked pages of that page's fans.
Like It or Lump It!
Whether you a fan of the new Facebook layout or not, there is no denying that there is not much that can be done about it. User's just have to get used to the new layout. People do not like change and complain every time Facebook changes.
In my opinion there are some great changes and other changes were not needed. The blatant attempts to mimic other popular sites was very transparent. However, I do like the changes to Facebook pages section. The ability to Recommend someones business page is a very powerful social media tool. Yet I do not understand the need to change the email into threads - I still prefer the ability to search through individual emails, like the classic email allowed.
On a social media note, it was very interesting to see Facebook users try to leverage the power of social media, to change the layout back to what it was. Even if their campaign was in vain, people are starting to understand the power of social media!
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