The breaking news of the day, Facebook’s new “homepage”. Users logging in as of this morning were presented with a rather different homepage than what they are accustomed to. A few like it, myself among that group, but the general opinion seems to be viciously opposed to the latest version of our beloved social network. For those who don’t know, lets discuss a few of the major changes.
Live Feed
Located at the top right of the page, always floating in the sidebar column regardless of scrolling the page, this new widget provides a brief summary of your friends’ activities live, as it happens! I really like this, it gives me reason to stay on the main page now if I’m just idling. Added bonus, hovering the mouse over the feed items pops up a detailed view, with comment box and all! You can interact in the usual way without even leaving the news page! I can’t see why anybody would object to this widget – you are on Facebook to be social, to see what your friends are up to, right?
Top News
Not necessarily presented chronologically, Top News displays, at the very top of the news feed, activities that Facebook thinks you would most likely want to see. This is based on who posted it, the amount of likes, and comment activity. I’ve seen bitter objection along the lines of “I don’t want to see this, I want to read the latest news” but do you really? Assuming that Top News makes useful suggestions, I think that you in fact would be interested in the hot topics buzzing through your social group. Remember, the latest isn’t always the greatest;) Besides, your “regular” news, chronologically sorted, appears underneath the top news. Just scroll down a bit, you will find it waiting for you I promise.
So what’s the big deal?
The way I see it, these changes allow me to be social more efficiently, and that makes me happy! Lets not become set in our preconceived ways of how something should be before trying out something new with an open mindset. Why, we’d still be using the phone to communicate with each other had we not taken the innovative step towards using the internet for communication. Besides, didn’t everyone hate the recently replaced Facebook when it was the “new Facebook”? yeah, the version that everyone now wants back turned out to be ok, possibly even better than the version that came before. Surely the new changes aren’t so bad. It seems to me that this is more of the classic “fear of the unknown” syndrome than anything else; lets give this new Facebook a chance, learn its nuances and then form an informed opinion.
I’d love to hear from my readers what they think of the new Facebook. Love it? Hate it? Some stance in between? Lets hear about your experience!
