Facebook Home Page Facelift

Perry Govier
March 9, 2009 | BY Perry Govier
  


Jason Douglas
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Remember just a few months ago when millions of people petitioned against the ‘New Facebook’?  You’re finally getting used to the ‘New Facebook’, seeing that it does have some nice qualities.

The people at Facebook do not like their members to get comfortable.  Soon, users will see a new facebook homepage which according to some, is making Facebook more closely resemble Twitter.

Some of the notable changes:
•    Facebook’s popular ‘News Feed’ will be updated in real-time.
•    Filters are located in the sidebar, allowing you to control who you see updates from (friends, family, network based)
•    Statuses are more than just text and links; they can include pictures and videos now

Those are the big changes that I noticed.  Wired.com has more facebook changes in their blog with screenshots comparing the old and new.
Having the news feed updated in real-time will be an improvement; refreshing for new statuses was a small annoyance.  The filter system has the qualities of TweetDeck; to have high school friends, college friends, co-workers and more in their own respective group should clean out a lot of the ‘rif-raf’ that can clutter one’s Facebook news feed.

Change is good.  I was one of four fans of the ‘New Facebook’ when that was released, and I support the new homepage.  This will only help enhance the Facebook user experience.  Changes like these should be embraced, not petitioned against.

Will this be the last change we see for a while?  Facebook needs to develop a consistency so users can become familiar with everything that facebook has to offer.  With changes every few months, we will always be playing catch up.

What do you think?

Feel free to tweet me: @jasondouglas

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  • http://www.CoryBolton.com Cory Taj Bolton

    I’ll be honest in saying that I was on that petition train when it came by last year but I did get used to it. I thought the friends’ feed (a.k.a. the stalker feed) was a bad idea but I soon embraced it months later as I don’t have time to click around everyone’s profiles to see what’s going on with them. It’s nice to see that all on the one page and it’s the first page you see. Change is hard for many of us, even if we don’t realize the benefits of those changes until later. This time I’m with you on saying that the changes will be good. I especially like how Facebook is expanding it’s marketplace to be more like Craig’s List. I trust buying items from friends or friends of friends more than strangers. It will be interesting to see if that actually takes off or not.

  • http://www.spydertrap.com/blog Jason Douglas

    I had an experience right after graduating with the marketplace as it is today. I was able to sell my mini-fridge to a mankato kid for near what I paid for it 6 years prior. I’ve also tried selling Vikings tickets; that did not go so well. Most of what is on the marketplace are rental properties, school books, and other miscellaneous items. It would be nice to have the facebook marketplace be spam free; craigslist is getting out of control.

    Facebook has had the notice about the changes that are coming; when will they be implemented? I’m glad you’re on board!

  • http://localmn.wordpress.com paul jahn

    My first 10 second impression was good and I didn’t know why. The first thing that I noticed was descriptions of photo groups were more visible on the home page (were they even visible before? I don’t know).

    I didn’t notice that you could add pictures and videos to your statuses. I really like that!

    Good stuff Jason.

  • http://www.twitter.com/jasondouglas Jason Douglas

    Hey Paul!

    Friday afternoon, I was finally blessed with all the new updates. I have heard and seen very few positive reactions to the new new-facebook. I haven’t had a chance to toy with it much, but I did notice where you can segment who is in your news feed.

    I heard about the ability to post pics & video on your status in some other articles; have not seen that implemented yet.

    I think people are confused and frustrated with how facebook changed things up again. Not everyone is social media savvy; it takes time to adjust to changes that are supposed to benefit the user.

    I plan on writing a followup blog in a week or so reviewing all the changes and acclimating myself to the new new-facebook.