Facebook has gone through another cosmetic surgery, which, not surprisingly, has Facebook tapping into features much like its younger competitor, Twitter. Facebook has abandoned its "News Feed" for a "Stream" that imitates Twitter's up-to-the-second updates. While Twitter asks users, "What are you doing?" Facebook now asks, "What's on your mind?"
With or without the "Stream," many faithful Facebook users' are clearly getting dizzy: stop changing Facebook! In Facebook's continuous effort to one-up the competition, it has become the chameleon of social networking sites. If users lose sight of what Facebook is, how can it retain a corner on the market and remain successful?
Fortunately for Facebook, there's a constant influx of new users (many of whom are older than 55) and who have no idea what the site used to look like or how it used to function. They will appreciate the minimalistic, streamlined layout and increased use of user pics around the site--new features that are Twitter trademarks.
Here are the cons as the rest of us see them: For starters, we no longer have the option to see more or less of a friend's updates. Our choices are now to suck it up and view their annoying application actions along with everything else--or give them the dreaded ‘X' and not see any of their updates at all. Sure, we can make custom friends lists to filter the "Stream," but that's tedious--and who uses those filters anyway?
Site Map A potentially more damaging complaint is that information gets lost in the new "Stream." At first, this is counter-intuitive because the purpose of the "Stream" is to make information clearer and more accessible than ever before. Facebook's new layout makes no distinction between different kinds of information. Old Facebook utilized different "indicator icons" to showcase whether a piece of information was a status update, wall post, posted link, etc. New Facebook heads every type of information exactly the same: with the user's picture and name--no indicator icons. This means some information may get lost in the shuffle.
The irony of the situation is that in order to address these complaints, Facebook will have to change again.
written by n.l. belardes , March 16, 2009
I use Facebook a lot more than I used to, but I still love MySpace... And Twitter is just addicting... I've gotten a lot of news stories out of both.
Facebook can change all it wants. I'll still use it. Great piece of info!
written by Barb , March 16, 2009
Thanks.
It does seem that there are still more people (at least from my generation) on MySpace, but its layout is cluttered and it takes way more time to load than Facebook. I think MySpace is overdue for a massive makeover, and then it would really be back in the game.
None of my friends are on Twitter yet. :/
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