For Facebook’s sixth birthday this past week, they unveiled a new look for the home page. Facebook’s population grew by more than 200 million people in the last year alone, to a total of 400 million users now! If you aren’t one of those people, I think you may have lost your mind. Facebook seems to be where everyone is these days – in addition to Twitter.

Social networking online is starting to become just as important as face-to-face conversations were in the past. We have insulated ourselves from the “real” world and tend to bury our visage in the computer screen for too many hours. We’re busy, yes… but are we really so busy that we can’t take the time to network outside of websites? Anyway, I digress…

As to the Facebook changes, they appear to be minor cosmetic ones that will benefit all of us. You can now more easily access your favorite games and applications, along with those friends who are currently online. The search function for the site is more prominent than it was before. Also, the news feed is now divided into categories for “top news” and “most recent” posts from your friends. This will help clean up the deluge of information we had clustered together before.

It’s also now easier to find friend requests and new messages. Now, when you receive a notification about someone writing on your Wall or tagging you in a photo, you’ll see a red bubble appear in the left-hand corner – near the search bar. When you click on the icon, you’ll see a drop-down menu with your most recent notifications. I don’t know about you, but this part is definitely a change I welcome. It was, at times, a complete cluster-you-know-what in the notifications area. The way they have it streamlined now makes me a much happier camper.

Are you a fan of the changes rolled out this week? Do you feel they help enhance your Facebook experience?