Note to Facebook: “Don’t let the whiners get you down, but…”

My feedback to Facebook, word-for-word:

I don't mind the new home page, but I am still respectfully concerned about a few things.

1. The new style for Wall posts -- they now look far too much like status messages. Were a person to change their status and then write on their own wall, the two events would look almost exactly the same.

2. "Recent Activities" seem to be arranged illogically, grouping them between Wall posts. It made more sense when everything was arranged chronologically, and when each Activity had its own date and time by default.

3. The new advertisement sidebar makes the pages too wide for a 1024x768 monitor. I could be wrong, but this is still the dominant monitor resolution.

I don’t really like this week’s redesign that much, but (a) it won’t cause me to stop using Facebook in protest, (b) it’s not even worth whining over, and (c) it’s not as major as the last upgrade, the “New Facebook” we received over the summer. As I said in a status message, technology evolves. (Would you like it if your new iPod classic didn’t support photos or videos?)

That said, I do think this Facebook is too much like Twitter, and unlike the New Facebook, I actually dislike it overall. Here’s the thing, though. With the New Facebook, we had a lengthy chance to test it before it was released. With this one, you really had to be paying attention to know it was going to happen (Facebook announced it on their blog weeks ago), and only then would you even have the chance to provide feedback. (I suppose this could be compared to the development cycles of Windows Vista and Windows 7, respectively!)

When the New Facebook was in beta, I sent Facebook feedback then too, suggesting that profiles should have ways to filter Wall posts from actions, and reminding them that each profile should have a link to your Wall-to-Wall with the person, instead of only showing this link on Wall posts themselves. Both of these features were eventually implemented, or in the case of the Wall-to-Wall link, re-implemented. Hopefully Facebook will take feedback as seriously this time around.

 

P.S. – Yes, I am blogging again! I seem to have more time for it nowadays. Hopefully my next blog post won’t take seven months. Probably closer to seven days this time around.