The collective online community groans audibly every time Facebook makes even the slightest alteration to its interface. Angry status updates abound and the internet buzzes with threats to abandon the social network once and for all. Countless hopefuls download apps in vain, lured by the promise of a return to the “old” Facebook, inevitably disappointed when that promise proves false. For a social media savvy society, we are apparently very resistant to change.
Mark Zuckerberg announcing Facebook’s overhaul at f8.
It was no surprise then that when Facebook launched its newest features on September 21st that the entire UNC community, if not the entire country, seemed utterly furious. Who didn’t hear from one friend or another about the annoyances of Facebook “always changing everything?” Unfortunately for the change-resistant, however, those relatively minor September 21st changes are just the first step in Facebook’s largest overhaul since its inception, as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in his keynote speech at f8 Conference in San Francisco, CA. What began with Ticker (that Twitter-like feed just above the list of people available to Facebook chat) and a “Top Stories” News Feed will culminate in an entirely new Facebook experience. To help soothe your worries about the changes that have already taken places and the ones that are still to come, we offer this helpful guide, with explanations of Facebook’s new tools, and their potential pros and cons.
1. Timeline
Timeline is the core of Zuckerberg’s new vision for Facebook. To be launched some time later this year, Timeline will serve as a virtual scrapbook with a stream of every status ever posted and every photo ever tagged of you. You’ll be able to mark the places you’ve been on a map and see everything your friends have ever written on your wall. Zuckerberg is even encouraging users to post information from their pasts, like baby pictures, so that Facebook can function more completely as a record of our lives. As you scroll deeper into a given Timeline–which is set to replace the current Profile–stories will become more compressed so that only the most interesting ones will be displayed prominently.
The benefits of Timeline for nostalgia buffs and memory hoarders are obvious. There is certainly something valuable about a catalogue of our interactions and life updates, especially a catalogue so easily culled. And, as a tool for Facebook stalking, Timeline can hardly be beaten. Facebook is making it almost too easy to analyze the interests and past relationships of potential romances.
The double-edged sword of this and every other Facebook tool designed to make “researching” our friends, our enemies and our ex-boyfriends is that they will, in turn, be able to do the same to you. There is something undeniably creepy, as the angry masses will undoubtedly point out when Timeline launches, about such an enormous record of ourselves on display for all the world to see. Timeline does little to refute the oft-levied charge that Facebook is little more than Big Brother masquerading as social media.
The Timeline feature that will replace “Profile.”
2. Facebook Gestures.
The ‘Like’ button is getting company. Facebook’s internal research showed that younger users especially were hesitant to use the “Like” button for their extra-Facebook web activity because of its implied endorsement. With Gestures like ‘Read’-ing, ‘Watch’-ing or ‘Listen’-ing, users will be able to share their online activities with friends, without declaring a preference for them. You’ll be able to tell friends you’re ‘Listen’-ing to the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, for example, without having to decide whether its good enough to deserve your virtual approval.
Facebook has given its developers the go-ahead to launch the Gestures of their choosing, so the possibilities for verb-ing the online activities of your choice are infinite. A possible benefit of Gestures: Facebook could theoretically introduce the long-awaited ‘Dislike’ button.
3. Revamped News Feed
Changes to the News Feed on Facebook are often met with the most derision, as it is the feature we see first upon log in and the one we interact with most once we’ve settled into the site. The newest incarnation of News Feed uses an algorithm, based on the friends you interact with most on Facebook, to select relevant stories for you. On the Facebook Blog, developer Mark Tonkelowitz compared Top Stories to headlines in a newspaper and said they will ensure that those who haven’t logged in to Facebook recently won’t miss important stories. If the Facebook algorithm miscalculates your definition of “important,” click the small triangle in the upper left hand corner to request that Facebook avoid certain people or subjects in the future. Those who log in to Facebook more often (like smart phone-toting, bored-in-Biology collegiettes) can also click to see a feed of the most recent stories in a format similar to the “old” News Feed.
News Feed photos will also appear larger than they previously did, which Tonkelowitz says will make them easier to enjoy.
The new News Feed, with larger photos, top stories and the option to view more recent updates
4. The Ticker
The Ticker is the real-time feed that appeared above Facebook chat last week with minute-by-minute updates of everything Facebook friends say or do on the site. Tonkelowitz said that Ticker provides the same information as News Feed, but without News Feed’s lag time. He imagines this will foster more immediate interactions between users.
Besides Ticker’s limitless capacity for time-sucking and inundation with inane information (don’t we already have Twitter for that?), there is also an element of the privacy-versus-stalk-ability debate. Ticker displays all interactions, even when our friends interact with users who aren’t our Facebook friends. Clicking on those friend-non-friend interactions will take you to the original post–even if privacy settings should have rendered them invisible to outsiders. While there is a thrill in beating the system to read a crush’s post on an ex-girlfriend’s wall, it’s unnerving to think that current and future employers might similarly subvert the system. Facebook seems to predict, perhaps correctly, that privacy will always lose out to voyeurism.
But if these changes are so controversial, then why does Facebook keep changing?
Facebook maintains that only a small percentage of users complain publicly about changes, but that seems unlikely given the vehement response to last week’s alterations. Facebook assumes it knows us better than we know ourselves, and that we’ll learn to love whatever changes it makes–remember when News Feed was met with ire? As Barbara Ortutay, a technology writer for the Chicago Sun-Times writes, “Facebook is a technology company that wants to keep improving its products so that people keep using it and it doesn’t grow stale. Sometimes, the changes are things people ask for. Other times, engineers try to anticipate new ways people will want to use Facebook.”
Ortutay also notes that Facebook tends to change in ways that encourage users to share and interact more with businesses and each other. In some ways, this is what we all want from Facebook anyway–it is, after all, social media. But the information we share on Facebook also serves an economic purpose we rarely consider when we post on walls and ‘Like’ favorite stores. “The more time people spend on [Facebook] and the more they share about themselves,” Ortutay writes, “the better companies can target their ads.” Facebook is expected to bring in $3.8 billion in worldwide advertising revenue this year.
At the end of the day, if you really can’t stand an ever-evolving Facebook…
Users rarely follow through with threats to defect from Facebook, fearing it might be social suicide to cut out such an important source of information. However, on the same day that Zuckerberg announced his changes to Facebook, rival social network Google+ went public for the first time (it had previously been invite-only) and has apparently experienced a boom of new membership. At Google+, you’ll be able to conveniently sync your Google docs and Google calendar with the site’s social media functions. It also offers more Twitter-like opportunities to follow the public figures you find interesting along with the classically popular interaction features from Facebook.
Still, as no one seems quite sure how to use Google+ yet, you might get a little lonely. With that being said, look out for next week’s article from Google Student Ambassador, Nancy Torres, highlighting how Google+ can meet the many needs of university students.
Photos:
Mark Zuckerberg (photo): Mashable, http://mashable.com/2011/09/21/prepare-for-the-new-facebook/?WT.mc_id=obinsite#26985Marks-Timeline
Facebook Timeline (photo): Mashable, http://mashable.com/2011/09/21/prepare-for-the-new-facebook/?WT.mc_id=obinsite#27111Timeline-Interface
New News Feed (photo): Mashable via the Facebook Blog, http://mashable.com/2011/09/22/facebook-gestures/#267892-New-Posts
Google+ Logo (photo): Google+ Home; https://plus.google.com/
Sources
“Facebook Changes Again: Everything You Need to Know.” Chris Taylor. Mashable. September 22, 2011. http://mashable.com/2011/09/22/facebook-changes-roundup/
“Interesting News, Any Time You Visit.” Mark Tonkelowitz. The Facebook Blog. September 20, 2011. http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150286921207131
“Q&A: Facebook changes explained.” Barbara Ortutay. The Chicago Sun-Times. September 22, 2011. http://www.suntimes.com/business/7816098-420/questions-and-answers-on-the-latest-new-facebook.html
“Users not happy with new Facebook changes.” Doug Gross. CNN. September 21, 2011. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-09-21/tech/tech_social-media_facebook-changes-react_1_facebook-top-stories-users?_s=PM:TECH