Last week we mentioned that
Facebook was testing out a new design. While we had details of the apparent
security breach that emerged as a result of said testing, we lacked specific details about about the actual look of the new pages. While we still haven't been able to get our hands on the actual refreshed social-networking site, we did find some concrete information online.
First off, it looks like profiles have been made wider and the left hand ads and links column has been removed. The expanded profiles have also been divided into tabs, which cleans up the increasingly cluttered, super-long mess that is your average Facebook profile (which we always thought was a shame, since many of us jumped ship to Facebook to avoid the increasingly cluttered mess that is your average
MySpace profile). The new tabs will include the following (or so we hope):
Feed tab - An expanded and more useful version of the mini-feed section on current profiles that includes information about wall posts, added photos, etc.
Info tab - An expanded 'About Me' section that allows you to include more information about yourself without making your profile seem as cramped.
Photos tab - A dedicated home for all your photos, tagged and otherwise.
Applications Boxes tab - A place to stash your Super Poke,
Scrabulous, and Oregon Trail apps, out of the view of anyone who might not care what '
Sex and the City' character you are.
Boxes tab - This one we're not so sure about. It seems to be missing from some screen shots, and, according to some descriptions, sounds exactly like the aforementioned applications tab. All we know right now is that this is where users will able to control what information will be displayed in their profile.The control offered by the boxes tab is one of the key selling points of the new design, which hopes to make users more confident in the security of their personal information and reign in applications that violate Facebook's privacy and user-control policies. While heralded at the time as a bold step forward for the social Web at large, Facebook's applications directory has collapsed into a cesspool of spammy nonsense. The company hopes that stricter enforcement of policies (and putting more control in the hands of users), it can stem the tide of toxic BACN. [Source:
Reuters and
TechCrunch]
Update:Well we finally got a hands on with the new design and we've gotta say we're impressed overall. The new wider profiles are much easier to read and the tabs keep everything well organized and easy to interact with. There are still some wrinkles to iron out, we couldn't figure out how to change our profile picture without uploading a new one and some applications don't want to play nice with the new interface. On the whole the new Facebook is a vast improvement, words can't describe how excited we are to not see a pile of icons at the top of every profile. The best part? With out all the Super Pokes and Where I've Been apps clogging up the pages everything loads noticeably faster.
Add yet another social network to the list of highly-specialized services looking to connect people with one particular thing in common. We've seen DoggySpace, a social networking service for those who have had alien encounters, a site for toddlers, and even U.S. spy agencies are getting in on the action. 
