If there’s one thing the Facebook community can’t handle, it’s change. It’s a fact that’s been proven time and time again – every tweak that Facebook has made in the past has typically been received by status updates from angry ‘bookers’ spouting confusion and angst.
But what this demanding community fails to grasp is that if ‘TheFacebook’, as it was called back in 2004, had never implemented changes it would little more than a wall. Now that wouldn’t be much fun.
So what’s Facebook done to got them riled this time?
Image credit – someecards
Earlier this week a bunch of new features were rolled out across the site, but there are two in particular that are causing rather a lot of fuss:
Top stories
Facebook now highlights posts that it think’s you’ll find interesting or important and positions them at the top of your news feed. Top stories can be identified by a blue triangle at the top left of the story. From what we can tell, Facebook determines a top story based on who posted the content, who’s commenting and liking that content and what type of content it is (photo, video, link etc.).
Common community reaction – “who the hell is Facebook to tell me what interests me and what doesn’t”. Short answer – “Facebook probably knows more about you than you do, get used to it”.
Ticker
The ‘ticker’, to the uninformed, is the feed located to the upper-right of the homepage. This feature condenses real time posts in to a Twitter-like stream which when hovered over, expand to reveal the post in full. It’s a bit like a mini Facebook within Facebook.
Common community reaction – “Ahhhhhh, it’s so busy, my eyes hurt”. Short answer “So do ours”.
These new features, like those of the past, will probably be accepted as standard a few weeks down the line, but if a recent post by Mashable is anything to go by then there could be bigger changes on the way;
Ben Parr of Mashable, blogged, “I have seen what Facebook is launching on Thursday, and it’s going to change the world of social media. And while I won’t talk about the mind-boggling things Facebook will be launching, I will say this: The Facebook you know and (don’t) love will be forever transformed”.
Sounds ominous.
