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| By Justin Smith | 17 Comments » |
It’s now been nearly a full week since the new “live stream” Facebook home page redesign launched to all users. How are users responding?
It’s still too early to tell yet in terms of bigger shifts in audience behavior – but early aggregate data from Compete shows total daily time spent on Facebook is roughly flat since this time a week ago.
However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t users complaining about the changes. In a Facebook application called New Layout Vote, roughly 850,000 users have expressed their sentiments about the redesign. The results? About 94% of voters say they don’t like it.
However, it’s not the first time a vocal minority of Facebook users have resisted changes to the site’s design. Two years ago, Facebook users initially protested the launch of the News Feed, but then became glued to the site even more because of it. Last year, Facebook users fought for ways to go back to the old Facebook profile design, but growth and engagement have continued to increase since – pages per visit are up by 50% since last summer.
Facebook is of course monitoring feedback through a variety of channels, but the loudest voice will be the way users actually change the way they use the service. We wouldn’t be surprised to see time spent and pages per visit increase similarly over the coming year – but the data will tell the tale.
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March 19th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
People aren’t going to adapt to this.
Facebook has ripped away all the depth that was the reason many of us liked facebook, and in return they gave us all the trivia we never wanted and USED TO BE ABLE to control.
The new single-choice News Feed inundates everyone with trivia they didn’t have to see before, while removing the Story Types sliders that let people manage that trivia.
At the same time they got rid of Live Feed, which provided ALL the depth that facebook offered for those who did want to receive lots of information. It’s now much harder to discover new local events, new friend connections, interesting new Groups, see when friends have changed their profile (because they gained/lost an interest/hobby/job/relationship), etc.
They’ve gutted the site, ripping-out functionality. What was once unique, deep, & flexible, and good for keeping-up with friends, is evolving into a rigid and equally shallow Twitter clone.
For ways to get facebook to fix what they’ve messed-up, read the action steps in
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=61010781930
March 19th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
I don’t mind the new layout, I voted yes on the poll. I think we should be able arrange the sidebars how we want them to be like MySpace lets their users do, and allow us to filter what we want to be “fed”.
March 19th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
so let me get this straight, Jeremy. You like the changes of the new-new facebook, but you’d like all the features back (sidebar/aka boxes, filters) so that works like the old-new facebook? I see…
March 19th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
We miss on line stories like new friend stories, Facebook is easily copying failed Orkut. Too much of app stories, especially repeats of same app stories mean bad newsfeed algo.
Thumbnails simply clutter the homepage. What to do, there is monopoly in social networks and no option other than facebook
March 19th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
I agree with Jason. It isn’t the look or feel or style, it is the new lack of control.
March 19th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
AMEN to what Jason said! The essence is gone.
March 19th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
The fundamental problem with the poll is that only those who dislike the page are going to vote. Those who are ambivalent are not going to vote. And this makes up a large portion of the population.
For those who are inept and I suppose, not observant, nothing has been lost in this new layout change. New events and groups are on the right side of the page. Aside from that, if you want to see, specifically, what groups every one of your friends has joined, you can open up the groups application.
Just because you are too lazy to adapt out doesn’t mean that the new layout is bad. I have not seen any actual functionality taken away like so many people claim. Rather, it is just not cluttering up the main page.
There are a few things missing from the main feed, like people becoming friends, but I feel this is not the problem the majority of the population has with Facebook.
The “essence” is, essentially, in the way you described it, nostalgia, which is very powerful and not necessarily illegitimate, but not enough reason for a website to keep the same layout.
And by calling it a monopoly or unfair, you are simply, finally, coming to terms with the fact that this is a free service provided to you. You are not paying for it, and therefore, you are not in control. Facebook is, to an extent, a privilege, and quite honestly, I’m thankful that it even exists, and it feels completely selfish to nitpick about details of layout or removing stuff from the newsfeed.
March 19th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
There’s definitely a lot of negative comments about the layout changes and functionality but that doesn’t mean usage will go down — the two are only slightly related. Facebook is ingrained and this won’t change that for most people (I have heard of a few users not visiting much because they’ve had trouble using the new site). What has been impacted is positive brand recognition and long-term loyalty. Users dislike the changes then grow accustom to them just in time to have things changed again. While this is normal with sites there’s also usually an identifable benefit but that’s far less visible with Facebook’s changes and for the most part what you see is people upset that they have to learn something new while getting very little benefit from their perspective.
Personally I like the real time nature of the new interface but it’s odd seeing updates about events on my phone that don’t appear on the site. I’m also disappointed to see every update styled the same making it difficult to understand what a user did versus what they said without spending more time looking at the exact text. It all blends together now.
March 20th, 2009 at 4:00 am
[...] leo en Inside Facebook un primer análisis sobre las consecuencias del rediseño en términos de uso de Facebook por parte [...]
March 20th, 2009 at 4:17 am
i was a big fan of the previous facebook revamp, but i am liking the new home page less and less as time goes by. i hate the fact that it no longer shows important information like when my friends are tagged in a picture or when they add a new friend. plus it doesnt show events, groups, fan pages and notes now. i really hate that its now full of junk app stories like “xxx took the yyy quiz and the result is zzz”. i also dislike that it takes up much more space than before.
if they had a settings link which let us choose which content we wanted to see on the news feed (so i could select all facebook apps but nothing else) i would be happy.
the other mistake they’ve made is with the new publisher. its much harder to use now. its ok for us as we are computer literate, but for the average user (especially a new facebook user) i cant see them understanding what it does!
March 20th, 2009 at 5:13 am
The Layout itself is completely fine for me, it’s just that a lot of functionallity has gone missing… Where is the ability to filter my news feed? Where can I turn of all these annoying quizes and otherwise turn back on the “joined a group” or relationship feeds?
March 20th, 2009 at 6:13 am
I think what I miss the most is story aggregation. If I see one friend doing something, it’s interesting. Two friends doing the same thing, it’s intriguing. Three friends, now I think I’m missing out on something.
March 20th, 2009 at 6:40 am
I’m sure the data will speak in your favor…in certain user cases it’s RIGGED to do so. I was a big fan of the live feed. Got turned on to it by a friend who was, who got turned on to it by a friend who was etc. Small sample size I know, but leads me to believe that there was a solid percentage of the audience using this tool. I liked it cause I could just keep that window open and the stream would *update automatically*.
Under the new system, if I want updates, I have to refresh my home page, which will read in your data as activity as opposed to the passive action of letting the stream update itself. So now, even though I find myself visiting Facebook less often than I did before (because I dislike the new layout and can’t find the info I want as easily), on your end it will look like I’m more active.
So while I’m sure “the data will tell the tale,” in this case it’s conveniently rigged to tell the tale you want it to.
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Justin– thoughtful post, thanks!
I referenced it favorably in How Facebook can one-up Twitter
March 24th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
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April 12th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
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