I am sure most of us are astonished by the changes on our beloved Facebook pages that took place on Sunday night. I am a regular Facebooker who barely keep up with any new features on my Facebook site. However, we all know that with this new amendment there will sure to be controversy.
The changes on Facebook this time is whole lot subtler then the last redesign. I was entirely pissed off by the previous changes that Facebook made to my page.
According to slate.com, 94% of one million users voted against that design. Still, we endured it for almost 19 months.
This time, all updates (new messages, requests and notifications) plus the search bar are moved to the top-left hand side of the page. It is said that these features are now located at a more “prominent” position.
Nonetheless, I find that the switching side of the “Home,” “Profile,” and “Account” links to the right has created some discomfort for the mouse. Well, we will be able to deal with it.
The new Facebook now shows you which of your friends are online automatically. This new feature is located at the left navigation bar. I would say we have been waiting for this long enough. Good job, Facebook. I can now see who is appeared online and simply removed the hassle of clicking the chat tool at the bottom right side of the page.
The new redesign has also included the links and applications that you’ve bookmarked immediately under the core features – News feed, events, photos and friends list. Each of them has a pretty looking dashboard. Since I am not a big fan of Facebook games or applications, this doesn’t bother me much.
The reminder for events and friends’ birthdays remain at the lower right navigation bar. And the chat box still sit at the same place. I suppose we would love to see something new at our chat box.
Yet, this new layout still hasn’t done away with the noisy homepage. I am especially headache and lost when I see irrelevant updates early in the morning. The new “Top News” and “Most Recent” are not of much help.
Logging out is also another troublesome tasking since we now have to sign out under the account menu, a thumb-down to that.
Overall, the new revamp has not created a big wave out of all Facebookers, which is, in a sense, a good thing. At least for this time round the changes are not too drastic and obstructive. I think the Facebook team must have been very careful when they were drawing this new layout. After the hoo-haas in 2008, I believe they have learnt a lesson.
Nevertheless, no matter what happens to Facebook in the future, I presume it will still be our much-loved social networking media as it has always been.
Columnist
University Chronicle
