Happy Birthday, Facebook
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.
As to the 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?
8 Comments
Kevin Nunez
February 8th, 2010
at 4:32pm
I really like Facebook’s new interface. Very 2.0 like. Not any faster than the old, but I do like the UI.
Stuart Shields
February 8th, 2010
at 4:34pm
I find the issue with Facebook redesigns is every time they just seem to fail badly at what they are attempting to do, and that’s to create a better user experience. This latest attempt is a lot more confusing then I think Facebook intended it to be.
Tim
February 8th, 2010
at 4:43pm
My account got rolled over to the new Facebook look today, although I heard all of my friends say it was really weird and hard to get used to on the weekend.
Overall though, I actually quite like it. It feels like the whole layout has been streamlined to along the more conventional lines of web design, and I’ve already found navigating around it is a lot more easier. :)
Happy birthday Facebook!
Jeremy
February 8th, 2010
at 7:00pm
It’s more cluttered and worthless than before. I wish they’d give you the option to choose which layout you want. Half the junk on the screen, i don’t even want there. I don’t care who is online, yet it takes up a whole column itself.. i hate Facebook more and more each time they update stuff.
Lynne
February 8th, 2010
at 7:10pm
So, just because a bunch of people with not much to do use Facebook and Twitter makes me insane not to waste my time with it? How insulting. Following a mob is not for everyone…I think I’ll skip them both. I’ve seen too many people make fools of themselves online just because everyone else is doing it. Thank you but no thank you. If I am insane to keep some small part of my privacy, then that’s fine with me. Count me no fan at all of any of it. Not that it matters, except to me.
Bob Ress
February 8th, 2010
at 8:11pm
I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook, it seems like just as I’m getting used to one interface they change it. I just got the new one today. Some likes and dislikes, the default feed can’t be customized. Overall, though I think it’s a step in the right direction.
Craig Turner
February 9th, 2010
at 4:53am
I had the new interface FORCED on me yesterday, and I hate it.
They could at least give us notification, and an option to switch back to the old interface if we want to.
Bill
February 10th, 2010
at 8:18am
I was rolled to the new interface about two days ago. As long as one stays on the home page it is a very nice clean UI, however… Easier to get to favorite games? I don’t think so… they did away with the shortcut bar at the bottom, so NOW rather than my next game being a single click away, I must first go to my home page, THEN select the next game. Taking away our shortcut bar and then NOT keeping the side bar where we can see it, was quite simply a non winner. THe rest of the update seems to have went well, though I am not sure I really like the whole friends section update… but I haven’t decided yet.