More Users Seeing New Facebook Home Page — a Birthday Launch Coming?
Facebook turns 6 years old today, and meanwhile more screenshots of the company’s long-planned home page redesign are showing up. We first saw similar screenshots last fall, the latest one, tweeted by Drop.io’s Sam Lessin today, looks a little different. And the new interface has apparently gone live for him already, suggesting it may be coming out soon for others.

In the screenshot, you can see the left-hand navigation column as Facebook has previously shown. The top section is for Facebook features and in-house apps like Photos and Events. The middle section is for bookmarked third-party apps (and games). However, the term “bookmarks” appears to have been taken out from the default view, as have the dashboard links (at least for now).
Something else we haven’t seen before: the lower part of the column shows friends are online to Chat with.
The top navigation bar has consolidated to show notifications (although not those from third-party apps), messages and friend requests. The search box appears in the middle of the top bar.
All in all, Facebook has basically taken the bottom toolbar away, and folded everything in it back into other navigational parts of the site; the news feed and the right-hand side of the site saw the most significant changes last fall.
Chat, a straightforward interface feature, is the only part of the bottom toolbar that we have not yet seen in the test screenshots that have surfaced. This suggests the redesign is imminent.
Speaking of, this screenshot has shown up on Facebook’s birthday — could that signify a wider rollout today? Maybe not, though, because Facebook said that notifications for third-party apps are going away on March 1.
Update: Here’s another screenshot, from reader Cameron Woodward. As he notes, Facebook is now displaying the “Credits Balance” in the new “Accounts” drop-down menu, a far more prominent location than its current location buried in the Settings menu.
[Top image via Sam Lessin/Drop.io]














February 4th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
[...] die schon das neue Design der Facebook-Menüführung sehen können, werden immer mehr. So auch auf insidefacebook.com mit einem Screenshot von Sam [...]
February 4th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
How will chat be useable when not on the main page? if it will be…..
February 4th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
That will be interesting to see, Luigi!
February 5th, 2010 at 12:35 am
mine is down at the moment! sad
February 5th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
[...] not see it yet on your own facebook, but slowly they should all be updating to a different layout. Read about it here. Personally, I'm on a break from facebook, I don't know about you guys, but its addicting. AKPC_IDS [...]
February 6th, 2010 at 12:31 am
HATE the new facebook home page. I cannot figure it out, does not meet my needs. In fact haven’t been on facebook but a couple of seconds today as opposed to hours per week before. Probably will find myself phasing out of it.
February 6th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
yea it’s Saturday night now and my profile still hasn’t changed, so when will the change reach all facebook users?