Facebook Facelift: All In All, Lots More Stuff On The Wall
This story was written by Staci D. Kramer.
Now you see it, now you don't ... screenshots and descriptions of the Facebook facelift slated to go live Monday are flying around but the url that is supposed to take you there keeps defaulting the current Facebook profile page. Given that Facebook has been trying to inoculate against problems by sharing telegraphing the changes for the past few months, this shouldn't come as a big surprise to people who care. (It will anyway, of course.) AP reports that the users will be able to start testing the new look this week but it won't go widespread until next week. Among the changes:
-- The Wall, the whiteboard for notes and photos from friends, was shunted to the side when the social net added the once-controversial news feeds and is often difficult to even find now on cluttered pages. Now it gets a prominent role again and then some. More emphasis on short-form communicating a la FriendFeed and Twitter.
-- Apps get shuffled around, meaning developers can no longer count on placement and publicity as users add them. Only eight app links can show on the sidebar but blog allfacebook says not all the apps show up. We continue to get word of Facebook app fundings but, as Joe pointed out the other day, relying on Facebook may be risky business.
-- On the other hand, Inside Facebook suggests that content creation apps stand a good chance to gain prominent exposure on a profile page when used frequently. The defaults go to Facebook's own apps.
By Staci D. Kramer