TimmyHThe First Facebook Facelift
May 23rd 2008 01:35
Sick of ridiculous invitations to Vampires, Booze Mail, Super Wall Posts and waiting a week for friends' pages to load? Never fear...Facebook goes under the knife very soon, with some elective surgery aimed at making the site "simpler, cleaner and more relevant."
The general roll out of the new "Tabbed Browsing" system, designed in consultation with hundreds of users, is set for next month. The incredible increase in the number of outside-designed applications has created a cluttered profile page. Facebook's answer is to split the main profile into five separate pages, all accessed by clicking on tabs at the top of the screen. Ideally...Feed, Info, Wall, Photos and Application will all have separate tabs, and privacy settings will be available for each.
One major criticism from users is the possible loss of the "Network" function, which has for the past five years, grouped people geographically and within institutions. However this is reportedly still "up in the air" with many users threatening to delete their profiles if "Networks" are removed.
Last year, Facebook was forced to backtrack after it tried to introduce a new advertising system that collected information from other websites about a user's activities. Hoping to avoid a similar backlash this time around, Facebook has put together a working group of 85, 000 members and high intentisy users to assess the relevant merits of the changes. But reports seem to be mixed. Some users support the project, others are dis-enfranchised.
One solemn user said to the think tank: "The site is becoming far too commercial. You will pay for it by losing users to other sites. You are taking away exactly what made Facebook unique. What are you thinking?"
The general roll out of the new "Tabbed Browsing" system, designed in consultation with hundreds of users, is set for next month. The incredible increase in the number of outside-designed applications has created a cluttered profile page. Facebook's answer is to split the main profile into five separate pages, all accessed by clicking on tabs at the top of the screen. Ideally...Feed, Info, Wall, Photos and Application will all have separate tabs, and privacy settings will be available for each.
One major criticism from users is the possible loss of the "Network" function, which has for the past five years, grouped people geographically and within institutions. However this is reportedly still "up in the air" with many users threatening to delete their profiles if "Networks" are removed.
Last year, Facebook was forced to backtrack after it tried to introduce a new advertising system that collected information from other websites about a user's activities. Hoping to avoid a similar backlash this time around, Facebook has put together a working group of 85, 000 members and high intentisy users to assess the relevant merits of the changes. But reports seem to be mixed. Some users support the project, others are dis-enfranchised.
One solemn user said to the think tank: "The site is becoming far too commercial. You will pay for it by losing users to other sites. You are taking away exactly what made Facebook unique. What are you thinking?"
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