Am I the only one? Sure seems like it.Â
That can’t be true though, it just can’t be. Since the switch I’ve noticed a huge increase in usage, from both myself and my friends. For people who hate it so you sure seem to be liking and commenting my shit more than ever. I think you want something to complain about, or you just hate change. Maybe its because Facebook’s UI has always been so utilitarian, and now its well, fun.
In any case, you’re still there and guess what? You’re generating even more page views than before. While I’m sure they value your feedback, they run the service like any good business with a focus on the bottom line. Â For right now the bottom line here is traffic, unique views and or course page views per session.
So why do I love it, let me count the ways:
Simple Status Updates:
Do you think this status update thing might be catching on? I get the feeling it might, call me crazy. Facebook was smart to expose this better and make it uber simple to use. Think about all your “normal” friends on Facebook, they probably don’t use Twitter and think its silly. Now the same concept has been brought into something they’re very familiar with, I can already see them engaging it more.Â
Highlights:
With increased noise in the newsfeed the “Highlights” box is a life saver. As your Facebook network grows (mine has about 800 friends) it becomes increasenly more difficult to catch everything. In between the updates of what your friends had for lunch, you may miss the real gems that float by. Evertime I’ve looked here I’ve found a great piece of content I probably would of missed. It’s hyper relevant because its from my friends, its also curated by these same friends. As more of them “Like” a particular item, it eventually finds it way here for me to enjoy. If social media is a latte you would call this the cream.
The Hook:
Getting people to come back to your site daily is a challenge. Facebook has helped to encourage you to return daily with an onslaught of emails. Annoying sometimes sure, but I can guarantee many of you can’t resist clicking through to see whats being said. In a world of over sharing, these emails add some affirmation to your body of “work”. Now along with photo/video tags, these emails about your status updates will bring you back many times over. I’ll probably disable them, but most users (especially with smaller friend counts) will not.
What are your thoughts? Please let me know how I’m right and wrong in the comments.
What Others Are Saying:
(Cartoon by Hugh Macleod)
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Sean Percival is an internet entrepreneur based in Los Angeles, California.
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:03 am
Well, If you want to know who DOESN’T hate the new design, you can invite your friends here and join up yourself: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=69032616319
Just a little group I started to combat the 4092739872 groups which are demanding the reinstatement of the boring old design.
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:05 am
I agree with all your points. I love the new layout and I love the fact that the are constantly trying to make it better. I think people in general just don’t like change so when they change the layout slightly it can be disconcerting to some. I however, love the improvements. I love that they changed the status bar to ask “what’s on your mind” instead of “what are you doing.” I could care less what someone is having for lunch but I’m interested to know what my contacts think about the new layout, the economy, or any news at all.
Thanks for the post!
March 22nd, 2009 at 3:22 am
I totally agree with you Sean, thanks for sharing your thoughts, findings and for posting this!
March 22nd, 2009 at 3:23 am
Marci Rosenblum just posted this on Facebook and I HAD to read it because I LOVE the new Facebook. I can’t get my ass off there anymore. And that’s as it should be.
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I don’t think the new facebook sucks, I just find that I have to search through a lot more places to find some of the things I wanted to find.
Creating a note is a bit harder, finding all of those apps navigation is harder.
Facebook just took twitter’s concept and popularized it to the world.
So while Facebook is definitely getting more interaction and usage from me and my friends, I’d have much preferred they kept facebook facebook, and not focused so much on the lifestream.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:52 pm
I don’t mind the twitterization of FB with highlighting the status feed. What i do miss is “7 of your friends are going to this event” or “stacy just uploaded pics or is now friends with sally” Instead half my feed is who took what quiz or other meaningless things which only rarely showed up in my feed before. A lot of fanboys (not saying you are one) counter with “but you can filter people out.” However i don’t want to filter people, I want to filter certain activities.
March 24th, 2009 at 2:34 am
Sean you make great points and I agree with you! The highlights is useful but I find it takes up a bit too much page real estate. I think they could improve on this. One thing that you did forget to mention is the ability to now view your friends Facebook status updates on the homepage and filter by Friend lists. I think this is my favorite enhancement of all of them. It definitely is become more Twitterish, I guess that’s what happens when Twitter turns your buyout offer down.
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:11 am
I think you are absolutely on the money. I always crack up when I hear people up-in-arms about something when facebook does something. They did that last time with the News Feed…people hated the News Feed and were demanding Facebook take it down. It’s like people have no long-term memories when it comes to this stuff. Bottom line is most people don’t like change…even when it’s for the better.
March 1st, 2010 at 5:12 pm
My God, i deliberation you were obtainable to microchip in with a number of resolute insght next to the halt present, not leave it with ‘we leave it to you to decide’.
March 15th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
I totally agree with you, facebook has become more and more interactive than ever before and I like it :) I think a lot more people are finding themselves on Facebook more so than ever before too because of the new set-up. Facebook still hasn’t created a system for designing your profile layouts but I have found a legitimate site http://www.pagerage.com that allows you to have background layouts for your page. It’s pretty cool and the download was really user friendly. I highly recommend it.
July 12th, 2010 at 11:19 am
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September 6th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
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October 22nd, 2010 at 1:44 am
[...] Well, here’s what Sean Percival (Vice President of Marketing at Myspace) had to say about the … [...]
November 14th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
I dont like their latest change that they implemented a couple weeks ago, but now that i have found this new application to my own theme, I’m a happy boy !! http://www.squidoo.com/free-facebook-themes
March 23rd, 2011 at 5:39 am
I don’t like also the changes the made. It’s more complicated. It is now very detailed but still i do enjoy browsing mg page. Anway, thanks for posting this. I learn a little somehow.
May 23rd, 2011 at 5:29 am
Well…I think I do like their changes. For me, I don’t feel it’s complicated but just very detailed. So yeah…thanks for the great info!