Recently I’ve heard a lot of discussion about why people hate the “new” Facebook. I’ve even received invitations to groups who oppose it. Now I’ve been part of such protests before, but those were based on specific issues related to privacy, that in my opinion, Facebook handled fairly well. But this really confuses me.

I’ve been using the new Facebook for about a week, and I have to say, I quite like it. Here are the three main reasons why.

  1. The “new” Facebook isn’t really new. To be sure, it looks exactly like Facebook has always looked, it has the same colour scheme and layout, and the differences are only superficial. At any rate, it’s not different enough to be confusing to users.
  2. It uses up more of your screen. Almost all computers these days come with LCD monitors, 19″ or larger, capable of displaying very high screen resolutions. Why, then, do web sites still have to be compatible with computers running at 800×600? I can understand it on, say, a government information page which has to be accessible at every cost. But those with a resolution that low are a severe minority. Using more surface area = less scrolling. And less scrolling is good.
  3. Less clutter from (cr)applications. Try this: browse to the profile page of a friend who has eleventy billion applications installed. Want to post on their wall? Good luck figuring out how, if they have SuperWall, MegaWall, the Berlin Wall, and Pink Floyd’s The Wall in their profile. On the way, you might have to scroll by a needlessly detailed breakdown of their ethnicity, a map showing all the places to which they’ve travelled, and what percentage of them is vampire, pirate, or alien. Finally, you might find their wall, at which point you’ve forgotten what you wanted to say to them in the first place. If your sanity is still intact, switch to the new Facebook and check out their profile. Everything you need to know is right there on the main page, with all the useless crap conveniently tucked away on other pages. It’s quite simply a better user experience.

I haven’t been happy with every update to Facebook. I’m still not enthusiastic about the mini feed and news feed, and with the standard Facebook application for finding other students in your classes gone, this function is no longer possible because of the number of apps created for this purpose. But this update definitely seems like a positive one to me. And best of all, Facebook has kept their promise not to degenerate into the next MySpace with automatically-playing music and crappy animations and weird colours all over the place.

So what’s the big problem? Is it just that people have gotten used to their beloved Facebook and they don’t like to see anything change? If that’s the case, it certainly flies in the face of technological progress. Nothing in this world is so perfect that it cannot be made better. In fact, it is this that motivates many of us to achieve greater feats than we have in the past. As a high tech worker myself, I know that the technologies being released today are destined for obsolescence tomorrow. Things are constantly changing, and if we fail to change with them, we’ll get left behind.

Disagree with me? Hit me with a comment!