We saw hints of what was to come a few days ago when we caught the subtle top-bar change on Facebook, and have seen many new features being tested around over the last few weeks, but this morning Facebook unleashed a new layout onto its 500million+ users. This will obviously be met by the critics who believe that Facebook has changed too much since it launched in February 2004.
However, all change will be met by resistance, no matter what benefits they may provide. This article will quickly go over the benefits of some of the biggest changes released and enforced today.
New News Feed
Many users have complained that with the update earlier this week to group notification emails together, they were missing out on important news from their friends.
This new newsfeed addresses this problem, by showing the most important news since the last time you logged in. Doesn’t this make more sense that scrolling through lists and lists of updates, game posts and application updates? Think about it… take the time to assist the system in knowing what is important to you by clicking the little blue corner on your most important news items, and this will become a killer feature for saving you time.
Not to mention the way photos are displayed is beautiful and a great update to the 5-year old style that was previously used.
New Chat Layout
Although not a brand new feature, the design was chosen to allow for the move to this new layout and allows you to have chat overlaying anything you are doing on Facebook.
Your most-contacted friends are always a click away and you can see when they log on to spark up a quick conversation. A win-win we believe.
Not to mention the growing availability of the built in Facebook Video chat that is coming to more and more users’ accounts. Get used to using Facebook for more of your communication process everyday.
Happening Right Now Feed
Probably the most discussed change, the ability to see what you friends are doing at the instant they are doing it is a scary idea in itself.
But try it out. You can instantly reply, like or share the content your friends are looking at. Without leaving whatever page/application/game you are currently looking at.
Imagine you are entering a competition, playing your favourite fb game or even browsing around… why do you have to open new tabs or leave that to be able to share your opinion?
(Yes we know that the live-feed isn’t on applications yet, but we’re sure it will be!)
What do you think? Drop a comment below and let us know if you agree or disagree and why.
If you STILL want to complain, why not give structured criticism to Facebook via their official Home Page feedback form? Click here to go there.
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