Skip to main content

Facebook Redesign To Go Live

Five months later and it looks like Facebook is ready to release its new profile redesign. Facebook had announced it was working on a redesign earlier this year. In May, a glimpse of the redesigned was released to developers in the developers sandbox. Tomorrow evening the redesign will be open to the public.

Back on Schedule

Originally, the redesign was scheduled to be released earlier this week on Wednesday. However, there were numerous API problems which Facebook promptly notified developers about. Since then, developers and users have been able to access a preview of the new profile redesign by heading to http://www.new.facebook.com. Yesterday evening Facebook released the following message to developers:

"We know you've been working hard getting your applications ready for integration with the new profile. Thank you for working alongside us. We're close to the starting line - when users can start opting in to see the new site. We recommend you have your applications ready by Sunday evening so that users' first experience with your applications on the new profile will be a great one."

What's New

Now that it's time to get ready for the official public launch here's the scoop on some of what's new for users of Facebook:

  • New Menu Bar
  • Mini-Feed and Wall are now under the wall tab
  • A new "Bio" box
  • Complete rearrangement of tabs for your wall, info, photos, and apps
  • Facebook Apps are now found in the "Boxes" tab
  • Users can add extra tabs
  • Use your webcam to take a photo or record a video to add to your collection or post on the Wall of your friends

Love it or Hate it?
I think the new redesign is great. I only wish that the wall and mini-feed were separated still. However, I love the idea of having custom tabs and I love the new menu bars. The breakdown and options provided for each tab is great and should encourage users to use certain features more like posting notes and sharing links. We'd like to hear your thoughts though. So leave a comment and let us know if you like the redesign or if you'd rather stick with the current design.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why Flash Player is the best plugin ever

Cross-platform Availability and Portability Flash Player is available for all the major operating systems: Windows Mac OS Linux Solaris Also, it comes preinstalled with Mac OSX and Windows XP . So the users of these platforms don’t even need to download it! There is also Flash Lite , which enables the viewing of Flash content on mobile devices like cellphones and PDAs. Just take a look at all the mobile phone manufacturers that are incorporating Flash Lite into their devices (currently more than 140 cellphones are Flash-enabled): Fujitsu Hitachi Kyocera Mitsubishi Motorola NEC Nokia Panasonic Sanyo Sendo Sharp Siemens Sony Ericsson Toshiba Still not convinced? Well, there is even more - the PDAs : Microsoft Pocket PC and Sony CLIE. Can there be more? Sure. Let’s not forget the consumer electronics : the iRiver U10 media player and the Kodak Easyshare-One Zoom Digital Camera are Flash-enabled, like some set-top boxes too. Oh, wait, I didn’t tell you yet which bro...

Why Google Apps is a Serious Threat to Microsoft Office

This is the perspective of a “skeptical, later early adopter”; the sort of person who Microsoft needs to retain and should have been able to retain easily. I don’t spend time on productivity tools that may at some date make me more productive, but which today are just a frustrating time sink. That describes the majority of people. MS Office can be annoying, but it does work. So any serious alternative has to offer a significant advantage and at the same time make adoption a total breeze. I think Google Apps has reached that point. The significant advantage is collaboration. Since I started working on a new project where we all agreed to use Google Docs from the start, I have hardly used MS Office at all - even on other projects. The lead product in Google Apps for me is their word processing product - i.e. the MS Word alternative. That may be because I am a wordsmith, but also because it is the most mature. I still use Excel, as Google Spreadsheet is both a pain to learn and not good e...

Understanding the Pyschology of Color in Web Design

So you've bought the domain, you've got some great sales copy, ensure your meta and alt tags are doing they're job, have a few graphics thrown in for good measure and are all set to publish your design to the web. Right? Wrong. But though you're on the right track, you might have overlooked what research is now calling one of the most crucial elements in site design: color. Having the right color scheme might be one of the ways to make or break your site. Since you only have about the first ten seconds of a user's attention span, you need to ensure that what they first see catches their eye. The fact that the users are visiting your site means you've got the core elements of design on target, but now you have to keep them there. True, you'll need great a great sales pitch and copy but don't underestimate the importance of a color's pyschology. Colors mean different things to different people and can symbolise different things in different cultures. F...