Facebook Announces New Homepages: It's All About the Stream
Facebook today announced a major update to its homepages that will go live next Wednesday. The new homepages will put the news feed front and center and have both a filtering feature as well as a sidebar that highlights the most popular topics and links that are currently being discussed by your friends. The news feed is now also updated in real-time, while the old feed ran on a schedule and only updated a few times per hour.
New Homepages
One highlight of the new homepages is a new 'publisher' feature which looks almost exactly like a similar feature on FriendFeed. Users can now easily post updates, notes, photos, and videos right from their homepage without having to go to the specific application first. In addition, users will now be able to easily filter their streams by specific friends, the type of relationship they have with people (groups), or by the application that generated the update.
Just like on FriendFeed, users can now easily block updates from others if they turn out to be spammers or are simply posting too few interesting (or too many) updates.
Followers on Facebook
Facebook has also lifted the 5,000 friend limit, which, according to Facebook, might mean that the definition of 'friendship' on Facebook could change in the long run. According to Facebook, only a very small percentage (less than 1/10 of a percent) of users currently hits the 5000 friend ceiling, but the company wants to give those users who want to share info with more than 5,000 users the option to do so.
Thanks to updates to Facebook's privacy settings, users will now also be able to follow others without having to become actual 'friends.' This is basically the same 'friendship' model that Twitter has implemented on its service.
Changes to Pages
Facebook also announced the rumored changes to its Facebook Pages. These pages currently allow brands, businesses, and celebrities to create a branded presence on Facebook, but they are separate entities from Facebook's regular profiles. Today, the new pages are going live for CNN, U2, and President Obama and will open up to all Pages users by March 11th. In the long run Facebook wants to converge everybody on the site to have the same type of presence, no matter if they are brands, celebrities, Robert Scoble, or just regular users.
Twitter Envy: Shifting Focus to Real-Time Updates
During today's press conference, Facebook's Chris Cox also talked a bit about how Facebook's focus has been changing from being a relatively static page to its users embracing the news feed as the central part of the site. Cox also strongly emphasized the real-time nature of the news feed. We couldn't help but think that Facebook is slowly moving towards combining some of the best features of FriendFeed and Twitter on its homepages as it has seen how quickly users latched on to Twitter and its real-time updates.
How Will Users React?
It will be interesting to see how Facebook's community reacts to these changes. It seems like Facebook purposely made this announcement a week before it is going live in order to prepare its users. After all, when Facebook first introduced the news feed in 2006, its users were anything but happy about this new feature. There will also be a preview site where users can familiarize themselves with the new homepage before they see it on their own page.
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I'm really excited by the developments mentioned here and Facebook will definitely generate a lot of positive feedback over the latest updates to the site. The sidebar featuring popular topics sounds similar to the best-of-day feature on Friendfeed and I'm sure it will be well received within the Facebook community! :)
Sounds like lots of exciting changes. I'm especially interested in the group filters and the new page layout. The one thing that kinda scares me is the "follow" functionality. I use Facebook for mostly personal purposes, so I don't want just anybody to follow my activity. I still want this to be on an approval basis. I expect Facebook will maintain the same degree of privacy awareness as before, but it is somewhat concerning.
Looks like FB is moving in the right direction.
2 things that are of interest to me;
* Wondering if these changes will clean up the usability of their site? Right now, its all over the place.
* These 'new' features are basically retreads of features other sites already have or have incorporated in some way. Where are the groundbreaking features?
Good move facebook, but if you want more of my attention, you gotta do more.
~Bob
www.onehalfamazing.com
I'm also very excited about these changes, and I hope it means we can do away with Twitter once and for all. I have been saying for a long time that Twitter is a feature, not something you build a business on, and that the day Facebook offers the same functionality, Twitter becomes irrelevant.
From a developer's perspective: we've been working on companies' FB pages so that they can fit well with / take advantage of this new layout, and are finding that:
- It's great having the extra real-estate of the other tabs. Many clients' pages had gotten too long and felt like a content "shotgun". This change helps.
- Architecting these pages to drive attention across tabs and the applications that live on them is more akin to planning and managing a "microsite" than a "page".
- Having direct-links to the tabs (and being able to default-focus one) is going to be big for external linking/momentum
I'm really happy to hear about these new features - especially the follow feature (I already can see my friends list getting slimier & more meaningful). Also the new front page design - especially the inclusion of the publisher on the home page seems really nice.
And still I miss some features from facebook - such as the ability to import all the feed of my web activity to my facebook news feed/wall & the ability to follow "virtual friend" (friendfeed style).
If you can buy them...
http://venturebeat.com/2008/11/24/high-school-20-twitter-rejects-facebook-wants-more-status/
...mimic them.
That's really good.Its looks much good if it can provide personalized themes like myspace
I am so eager to see the new homepage. Last time when they updated they made it poorer than the older one.
I personally think that allowing people to follow you even if they aren't your friends will ruin facebook for lots of people. I don't want to publish everything on facebook to anyone who wants to see. That is what I use Twitter for. I like the current policy of not showing things to people unless they are your "friend".
Twitter and Facebook are totally different things, and I think combining them - which is what Facebook is trying to do - is not a good idea. It will make things more complicated than ever for users of Facebook.
David Jeffrey Wright
says Facebook features are already LIVE not next Wednesday, more like RIGHT NOW ! I updated my pages already with new streams feature. http://tinyurl.com/c7zd3d
someone knows what will happen to Fan Videos and Picture? I don't see them as admin of my page! according to this PDF documentation they should be somewhere -> http://bit.ly/12V7V
This sounds great and I am glad everyone can now have a branded page just like any celeb or company, that way everyone gets to feel important!
I dont want anyone but friends to be able to follow my stuff. I dont like this new feature.
The new features all sounds great except the bit about allowing non friends to follow your moves. If I had an ex or someone else I know but not well enough to let them into my facebook life I dont want them knowing who my friends are and what Im doing. I might wanna talk to friends about someone or something and not want others to know about it. I thought Facebook was about networking with friends and family.
Does anyone know if there will be an option in your profile to stop this?
I think the changes are great. The new version of Pages, combined with the real time nature of News Feed, will bring RSS-like capabilities to the masses. http://tinyurl.com/amj5jn
Finally....Facebook have seen the writing on the wall and know what they have to do to ensure more productive use of their social app. Yes of course some people don't want just anyone following them on FB, but again that depends on what you are hoping to achieve with FB. If you are wanting this your professional profile and networking, then the ability to follow is an obvious necessity. As the article mentions, you certainly don't have to allow this, but it is something businesses and users offering focused non-personal content require if FB is to be of much use them. I would love to see Twitter fall by the wayside in favor of other apps, but unfortunately I'm not sure this move by FB is enough, and may be too little too late. Again it comes down to the ability and comfort of users to be able to separate the personal from the professional profile. Can Facebook draw the business profiles & conversations from Twitter, Friendfeed & Linked-in before they really start hitting critical mass? Only time will tell.....
I don't like the new layout, but I guess I'm of the belief of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" club...
I noticed in your post you mention that Facebook has lifted the 5000 friend limit as part of the recent update to Facebook pages. Can you confirm this actually happened? has Facebook confirmed this in any of their communications?
I know of users with 5000 friends, and they are still not able to accept more friends past the 5000...... If you are able to shed any more light on this, this would be very helpful.
i hate this new face book it dosent make sence and you cant even chat to anyone are see who is avabile to chat
How come there's never any info bout who can see my home page and newsfeed, and I can't find anything which explains the difference between the homepage and newsfeed. When I contact facebook help I get directed to comments from users who are either equally baffled or misinformed. If you are concerned about who can see what, don't expect simple answers from facebook. You're pretty much on your own.