New Facebook design with real-time news feed
March 5, 2009 – 2:42 am by Kyle WelterOnce again, Mark Zuckerberg is rolling out another Facebook redesign…. and shockingly enough, it seems to mimmick Twitter even further!
Announced today through the Facebook Blog, the new changes are quite extensive and are definitely the largest we’ve seen since the creation of the news feed. The first update is the creation of a live-update news feed which updates in real-time as opposed to the feed that updates around every 15 minutes according to Facebook staff. I personally cannot wait for this change. I believe that through this update, they are trying to make Facebook a page which can be left open all day just like loyal Gmail and Twitter users are notorious for.
The second main change is the creation of profiles for “public figures and organizations.” What this basically means is that the brand pages previously occupied by companies, celebrities and organizations will be transfered over to individual profile pages. As plan currently stand, status updates and user activity of these organizations will be included in your news feed alongside your friends. This move is quite interesting and it is clear that Facebook themselves are not clear on how to roll this out. Just 10 minutes ago, I logged on and smack dab on the top of my news feed is a poll question that reads: “When you “Become a Fan” of a celebrity on Facebook, do you want to see their updates in News Feed?”
When I heard about the redesign, that was one of the first things that came to my mind. If they decide to implement organization’s updates into my friend news feed, there is no doubt that CNN (who I’m a fan of) will release update after update commenting on the hottest breaking news. After responding “Probably Not”, it became clear that the majority of Facebookers feel the same way as 45% responded “Probably Not,” 28% said “Depends on the Update,” and 16% replied “Not Sure.”
It definitely seems that increased filtering options will definitely be necessary (as they’ve already implemented and are increasing them with this new update as well) To tell you the truth, I cannot wait. I am excited to see the hundreds of “give us the old facebook back! New Facebook is creepy!” groups to pop up with 100,000 members and then die out within a month. What are your thoughts/concerns about the roll-out of the new design? Comment your thoughts!
