• Vox Populi: New Facebook Homepage Gets Kicked

    Vox Populi: New Facebook Homepage Gets Kicked

    Techtree News Staff, Mar 14, 2009 1230 hrs IST

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The new Facebook homepage finally crawled its way into India past midnight. While the full version of the site seems garbled on mobile phones (unlike the old one), the PC version seems to be close to rubbish to many out there. But well, like a haircut (good or bad), some of us are willing to give it some time, get used to it, and eventually get on with our lives with all the tagging, poking, and comparison activities among friends.

After we reported about the New Facebook roll-out, the website's users -- mostly the livid ones -- have spoken their heart out about how much they detest Facebook's new homepage. But there are some supporters too. For starters, the change looks promising to Olusegun from Lagos. Read on.

The Grouch-Potatoes

A Brooklyn resident says, " They took my fun. This new thing (homepage) sucks. You have NO control over the highlights, I don't even know what they are, don't want to see them. And, if you just want to minimize a story or a person's post, you can't, it is either there or you delete them from showing up at all. That is ridiculous. Sure there is nothing to compare "facebook" to, but they seemed to have taken away basic controls that worked. Just because i don't want to see one picture a friend puts up, does not mean I don't want to see anything they do etc etc etc. hate it!"

John from New York seems to be yelling this out: "I HATE IT!!!! CHANGE IT BACK FACEBOOK!!!"

"Overall I have to say... it SUCKS. Not only does it make me have to click mutiple links to see the same information I saw before, but it has lost functionality. For example there is no longer a way to delete notices from your profile page," says Sean from USA.

We Like Classics

Looks like the original Facebook with basic functionalities is still the choice of many and given an option, they'd love to get back to the classic version. Some Facebook users have commented:

" I hate the new FB. I miss the old [not the last one] Facebook...the original!!!" -- Anonymous

While Helen Holl from Cambridge says, "Why on earth to they keep on changing facebook?! i mean, its absolutely fine as it is. We don't need any changes! i HATE the new facebook. I agree that it is so confusing and just not the same. I used to love facebook. But now i hate it. Is there anyway that we can get the old facebook back?"

Kalo from Sydney writes, "This new facebook sucks, where has live feed gone? Now when a friend comments on a pic of another friend, it doesn't show up, if a friend becomes friends with someone it doesn' show up, & the column for status update & photo is now just one, what does status update have to do with new photos added? plz bring the old facebook back or else I'll lose interest & stop using it that much."

"They've really messed up - They're taking people for granted here. this is a complete joke, I wish they'd revert it back," says Amster from London.

A rather strong-headed Facebook user from Mississauga says, " the only way im keeping my profile is if i can switch back to the facebook of 2 years ago apparently you can do that, or so i hop(e)."

Honey, Let's Move On!

Some others said: "I think with some time and getting used to the new layout could work very well. However, there are still issues which need to be sorted, but I guess these can be corrected over time and as people give feedback to Facebook," says Damian from Cape Town.

Boston's Kristy says, "Ok seriously people, like always, they are trying to make things better and new to stay on top. If they don't make changes then other sites can easily take over as the new and "hot" site for social networking. Also I've been around on facebook for a long time, we've gone through so many changes and in a few weeks or a month for some I suppose, we will like the new changes just the same. So give it a chance, and by chance I mean a few weeks and if you don't like it then after using it, complain if you'd like. But I bet the majority of people will learn to like it just as well, and love new features."

This seems to be a "who moved my cheese" situation. Think about it, why would Zuckerberg want his popular social networking website to go down the tubes? If they do not incorporate the hot trends now, it'll just be too late in the future. Explore the new features, try and enjoy the new look and just move on.

Anger Management?

Well, if you can't move on, just join a 'hate group' for "I want my old Facebook back" on Facebook itself -- maybe it'll help? You don't need to go anywhere from here.

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Discussion Board
(4) Comments
JazB
,London, on Mar 15, 2009 07:28 AM
Facebook allows only 100 comments at a time on its blog post on the update, 95% of these are unfavourable. They added a 'Like this' vote but no "Dislike" one for comparison. Very handy if you want to pretend to press & advertisers it's been well received.
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Chris S.
,Sydney, on Mar 15, 2009 04:29 AM
Actually... I'm almost certain that Zuckerberg did this to improve support for advertisers. It wasn't a change done for end users.
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fred fep
,New York, on Mar 14, 2009 11:02 PM
I have noticed lately on the internet, there seems to be change for change sake, and usually things get worse, sometimes the actual interface is less workable. Sometimes they spend all their time making cosmetic changes and the actual workability goes down. This is worst among database aarchiives, but applies here. As Doonsbury (this past week) has been showing about the pointless Twitter, things sometimes devolve with improvements, whether popular or not
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BigRosey
,Slocum, on Mar 14, 2009 01:26 PM
Well, I think it sucks. Facebook just needs to make the homepages highly customizable. It's a shame to do such a major change just to look like Twitter.
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