Markets

Facebook's Home Page Changes Made Simple

By Catharine Taylor

Updated on: March 5, 2009 / 11:13 AM EST / MoneyWatch

Sometimes I feel as though keeping up with changes to Facebook's interface is a fool's errand -- just when you figure out where they stashed your applications in the last version, Zuckerberg & Co. rearrange everything, as if to make sure you're still paying attention. That's why you may sense some hesitancy in my writing of this post, but there are a few important changes we all should pay attention to in Facebook's upcoming home page redesign (see picture), if someone could just do a translation of them. I'm up for the job.

On filters Facebook's description: "Make sure you stay updated on what the friends you care about are posting. Create your own filters using Friend Lists. You can also filter by applications, like Photos." Translation: There are some so-called "friends" you don't give a shit about. Now you can use enhanced filters to keep yourself from being exposed day-after-day to their mind-numbing inanity.

On the "stream" of status updates Facebook's description: "The stream shows you all posts from your friends in real-time. This keeps you up to date on everything that's happening. You can control who appears here." Translation: Twitter.

On changes to publishing features Facebook's description: "Publish your status, photos, notes and more into the stream. Posts show up both in your profile, and on your friends' home pages." Translation: The river, or in this case, stream, runs deep. This will mean that your home page is populated (or maybe overpopulated, see "On filters") with potentially all the published content posted by your so-called friends. Video of cat miraculously opening bathroom door toilet? Check. Photos from friend's neighbor's son's bar mitzvah? Check.

As to what this all means, I'm mostly going to defer to a post, which I suggest you read in its entirety, by fellow Mets fan and Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer, who points out that among other things, this means pages published by advertisers will cease to be fairly static, walled-off parts of Facebook; they will jump into the stream, and if they don't swim well, users will filter them out. He writes:

All of these changes by Facebook are designed to put more information into 'the stream'. 'The stream' (the news feed, status updates, etc.) is what makes Facebook as engaging as it is. So much information will now be put into the stream that it will require filtering. Facebook is betting that you'll do just that.

Maybe I'll spend the rest of the day cruising Facebook for new "I Hate the new Facebook home page" groups, which users will no doubt start -- just because they can.