The "New" Facebook

Being that we are college kids most of us all have Facebook accounts.  As some of you may have noticed Facebook has undergone some changes over the past few weeks.  Facebook has completely remodeled the design of your homepage and profile page.  The changes have been receiving both positive and negative feedback.  I came across an article on CNN.com, “Users protest, defend Facebook face-lift,” (http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/09/22/facebook.facelift/index.html?iref=newssearch) about how people are reacting to the new changes that have been made to the site.  Some people are claiming that they joined Facebook because it was a lot easier to use than other social networking sites such as Myspace. "The new version is cluttered and there's no continuity to it," Valerie Stayskal of Addison, Illinois, told CNN. "I don't like the tabs they've got. When you get to the news feed, you see all these fonts, and it's just a mess. Very hard to navigate."

The old version of Facebook was very easy to use; you had your homepage, which had the news feeds and your notification updates.  Then you had your profile page, which showed your “wall” comments, photos and other various applications.  But the new version is very different.  “Facebook's new look separates users' personal profiles into different areas of the site and provides more tools meant to make it easier to share information and photos.”  Because there is so much extra space on the homepage user’s fear that their profile will get filled up with ads. 

In the past few weeks CNN has received many complaints about the new Facebook format.  People have even started groups on Facebook petitioning to bring back the old format.  Others say that its important to keep updating social networking sites like Facebook or another networking site might come along and surpass Facebook because they are willing to make the adjustments to keep the site fresh.  

There are definitely more important things going on in the world today to worry about other than Facebook being remodeled but I must admit that I myself do not like the new changes that have been made to the site.  I say bring back the old version.  It was less complicated and easier to use than this new format!  This affects how people communicate using Facebook because if people no longer like the site, they are probably not going to use it as an online communication tool.  This will result in the company losing money.  After having the new format up for a week or two, they should have conducted a survey on whether the users preferred the old format or the new format.  But like everything else online, I'm sure people will get use to it and just accept the changes.