Do You “Like” the New Facebook!

Google+ from day one had a better layout, better way to manage sharing and better privacy controls than Facebook. Facebook probably knew they had a real competitor out there. Facebook is probably a little nervous and its evidence are the sheer number of changes it has rolled out over the past 2 months.

It started with the tie-up with Skype for video chatting, then allowing much-needed tag approval feature, allowing bigger and faster photos, changing sharing options, introducing new smart lists where friends are added automatically and finally becoming more like Google+ and Twitter by allowing anyone to view publicly shared posts with ‘Facebook Subscriptions’.

Yesterday, Facebook made so many changes to its layout, that it was a little hard to really keep up with them. 🙂

The New Facebook!

1. Sticky Bar at the top: This is borrowed from Google+. The new bar at the top stays even when you scroll down. This makes it a lot easier to navigate and I like this change.
2. Change in Profile Options: The privacy options and other account settings options are neatly hidden under a drop down next to the Home tab. This might make it a bit difficult for some non-regular Facebook users to quickly find privacy options.
3. The Update Ticker: The real-time updates by friends on Facebook can be a big distraction. I do not like continuous updates filling up. It reminds me too much of my Twitter timeline. 😉
4. Home Update: The main updates from feeds are shown with a blue triangle at the top. You can mark it as ‘Top Story”, so it becomes more prominent when you visit your Facebook account next.
5. Lists and Updates: This is the best new change about Facebook. The Lists, groups, events, pages are all shown differently in a categorised way. This makes it very easy to share things with people you really want to.