Like the Facebook Redesign? Not So Much?

The New York Times Magazine had an interesting piece by Clive Thompson that touched on this recently, titled "Brave New World of Digital Intimacy."

One of the things it takes note of is the vast unpopularity of the Facebook news feed upon its introduction, and the fact that users now love the feature. Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, says of the incident,
“Facebook has always tried to push the envelope ... And at times that means stretching people and getting them to be comfortable with things they aren’t yet comfortable with. A lot of this is just social norms catching up with what technology is capable of.”

This is a really interesting idea, as we discussed the other day in a course I TA for, because it turns some of our commonsense notions of technology on their head. We like to think that we as consumers buy into a given product or technology because we like the changes it affords for our lifestyle - not that the technology we use somehow changes us.

Which of these ideas is true - or rather how they can both be true in a sense - is the subject of a long debate, that recurs with every disruptive new technology. And it's especially true of those that make our world smaller. Cell phones, automobiles, the telegraph, the printing press, radio, film and so on, have all raised similar issues. What I think is fascinating about the Facebook example is the extent to which its founder is confronting these ideas head on, in a very pragmatic, rather than merely academic, sense.

I really like it. It does make it easier to find information and navigate. The applications were really cluttering up Facebook... which, if anyone bothers to remember, was what originally prompted people to complain that Facebook was becoming too much like MySpace. So they try to make it easier to use and they're still complaining?

Ha! Now I see the recent post on World Newser, which is all about Clive Thompson's article. Guess I should have read a bit further down the blog before responding.

As far as I'm concerned, the anti-new Facebook croud is whining and screaming over nothing, and the news people should quit giving them so much attention.

To start with, it's not as if the new Facebook has taken anything away. There isn't even an accessibility issue. Only the layout is different, with additions to the functionality of the site, which = improvement and not something to moan about.

Most articles that come up in my Google alerts about Facebook lately have been about these whiners, and I happen to really like the new Facebook! Instead of pitching a huge tantrum, I tried it out, and found there were things I really liked! So okay, maybe people can't find their walls down at the bottom of their profiles, boo-hoo, it's still there, spread among sections within their profile, instead of buried under tons of annoying nonsense viral application clutter.

IMO best of all, new Facebook has many more additional comment areas within the news feed, including the live feed. Comments can now be made on just about any item concerning your friends, including their statuses, and friends update their statuses more frequently than they write Facebook notes, post links, or post to groups, or even send Facebook email. So a comment area under the status update is invaluable, it has lead to a lot more communication between me and my friends, much more than I ever had on the old Facebook.

But the anti-new Facebook people don't care "Waahh, we hate the new Facebook!" Sheesh, get a life!

For anyone reading Josh's posts...here is the link to the webcast piece on Clive Thompson and his piece on digital intimacy..

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2008/09/tracking-your-f.html

Thanks, page! I would've stuck the link in myself, but the moderators have scrubbed URLs from my posts in the past. Que será será.