a Little Light

Starting today, and over the next few weeks, Facebook will be slowing and progressively unveiling their new redesign to users depending on what networks you’re in.

Having experimented with this new design through www.new.facebook.com since a couple of weeks ago, I just wanted to share my thoughts on this new look, and what it means to us, the users.

Let’s begin with what everyone else will notice first, its look. The first thing I noticed was white space, lots and lots of white space. Initially, this disappointed me, as I thought it was wasted space. But as I reevaluate this, I think it was an intelligent move. The items are now less cluttered, giving Facebook back its simple and clean looks which drew users away from MySpace in the first place. I also love the integration of the wall and mini-feed. Facebook seems to be telling us that activity is activity, regardless if it’s a wall post or the creation of a photo album; this discourages users from deleting items from their mini-feed since it’s a different feeling from deleting a wall post. The new profile tabs are a nice touch as well, as they deemphasize applications, and refocus on Facebook’s bread and butter, revolutionized communication.

With the redesign, it also appears as if Facebook has remembered its primary purpose, to be the best social networking site in the world. With the introduction of the application platform a while ago, it seemed as if Facebook was trying to be a portal page and jack of all trades. It wanted to do games, music, comparing people, etc. And all these applications temped users to add applications to the point where the ease and cleanness of Facebook was replaced by laggy behavior and spam application invitations, giving Facebook the messy impression once regulated towards its notorious brethren, MySpace. With the allocation of the applications to the “Boxes” tab and the side bar of the wall, Facebook has reminded developers and users alike what its primary purpose is, to transform and simplify the way people of our generation communicate with one another.

The next major aspect influenced is usability, which has remained constant, throughout the changes. Everything still takes about the same time to accomplish, messages, wall posts, etc. It may take a series of different steps, but the number of steps is relatively the same, perhaps one could argue that its now more intuitive, although it really comes down to taste. Facebook has also gotten rid of the left sidebar and placed on the profile something much more important in that space, you. Our eyes are trained to study left to right, up to down, so now your profile picture is in the upper-left corner, putting the attention on you, not your applications, a really nice touch. With the removal of this left sidebar, the homepage right sidebar has now doubled in size, giving you greater access to status updates, requests, notifications, and other core components of Facebook. Your top 8 applications can quickly be located on this sidebar, so you don’t always have to click on the top of the screen, which is admittedly cumbersome.

Furthermore, it’s clear that Facebook wants all of our content, which includes you and me. With the introduction of the Publisher section located at the top of everyone’s profile and at the top of your home page (Newsfeed), Facebook has placed less of an emphasis on quality, but rather quantity. Notes can be quickly published in two clicks, photo albums don’t require you to give information such as location, you can now upload single photos, videos are only a couple of clicks away as well, and sharing a link has never been more prominently promoted. Facebook wants you to share your content with them, and they have never made it easier to do so.

However, its not all pretty and cherry. As Facebook has now cannibalized a top application from a popular developer with the introduction of customizing which friends will show up on your friends space in the left of your profile, effectively killing the application “Top Friends” and creating the MySpace “top 8″ drama some are far too familiar with. Also, I use Ad Block Plus with my Firefox, protecting me from ads on the internet, but judging by where the space is, it looks like advertising will be a lot more prominent on the right side of your profiles, and that these ads will be targeted based on the content on each profile; a genius move for Facebook for its developers and investors, but a reminder to its users that nothing is free.

Facebook will be holding its developer conference this Wednesday, so its motives and direction with these new profile changes will become apparent then, but for now, this is an evaluation of what information is available to me. It’s clear that Facebook is not content with being the social networking site of choice for college students, but wants to do to internet communication what Google has done to internet search. The only questions remaining whether will the application developers will tire of Facebook’s closed environment and continuous adjustments, and will users continue to flock to a site which appears to have placed a lid on profile customization and which perpetually changes, giving the impression that it’s difficult to use?

Regardless of what the answers may be, Facebook has made clear that it’s not interested in childish games and time wasting applications, only taking care of business by making communication easier and simpler than ever before.