“Facebook is all geared up for making a dramatic alteration to its Web site in a move it said will give users more control over the information they share with their friends.”
Palo Alto, Calif., — Popular social networking website Facebook on Wednesday unveiled a major revamped profile pages introducing new navigation tabs to make the hot social-networking website faster, less cluttered and more spam-resistant, bringing greater flexibility for users.
“If you are tired of all the vampires, booze mail and super wall posts, then help could be on the way.”
The popular Palo Alto website described details of the new design Wednesday and said it plans to put into operation the changes next month on a test basis. The new look will incorporate tabs at the top of profile pages to help members better organize their personal data, such as photos.
Facebook is presently built around a single main page showing a news feed, friends and applications.
The changes are intended at making the new profile page “simpler, cleaner, and more relevant,” which gives users more control in organizing their page.
Facebook has developed a great deal in the recent months with the addition of third party applications which tends to make a lot of clutter on user profile and other pages.
But reviewers say that a big addition in the number of free gifts, games and quizzes has made the site cluttered and confusing.
The modified profile pages would mark the latest change for Facebook, whose 70 million members have been vocal about past tweaks to the site. Last year, for example, it drew complaints after it unveiled a service that took information from other Web sites — such as a user’s latest purchase on Overstock.com — and broadcast it to that user’s network of Facebook friends.
Keeping that in mind, Facebook said it aims to introduce changes slowly, allowing users to use the new profile page in June before making it available to all members later.
Mark Slee, Facebook product manager spoke about the upcoming changes: “We are aware that change is difficult for our users, even positive changes. But we are pretty confident that we can walk everyone through this so they will be engaged with the changes and enjoy them.”
Facebook responded by dividing the main profile into five separate pages, all accessed by clicking on tabs at the top of the screen.
The fresh profile page provides a tab for feeds, including current status or recent activities. Besides, it also includes tabs for basic information, such as e-mail address; photos; and applications, the programs produced by outside developers such as games and online music players. Users can also design and add their own tabs.
Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook’s vice president of product marketing, said the latest design indicates the way Facebook users are producing and sharing more information about their own self. They are also increasingly interested in keeping up with their friends’ latest activities. The new look also clears some of the clutter that had started to heap on some profiles.
“People are telling narratives of their lives and we want to make it easy for them,” he said.
“We want to make sure it is easy for people to push and pull information in the form of bite-size content rather quickly,” Palihapitiya said while unveiling the redesign at Facebook’s office in Palo Alto, California.
“Because we want more content to be shared and created we needed to make sure the profile became simpler and cleaner. When you look at the profile today, it is actually a little cluttered.”
Facebook is currently the most favorite social network in the UK with 8.9m members, according to the most up-to-date figures from Nielsen Online, the internet research company.
Outside developers that write fun, functional or hip applications for Facebook users will get to tinker with the new format beginning this week so they can “tweak” programs to fit the new profile design.
The more than 70 million people worldwide that use Facebook will get chances to “opt-in” to redesigned profile pages during a “beta” test phase in the coming weeks.
The redesign is “in flux” and the final outcome will depend on input from members, according to Facebook director of platform product marketing Ben Ling.
Keith Rabois, vice president of strategy and business development for Slide, a San Francisco startup that creates programs such as Top Friends, said he thinks users will seek out its applications, no matter where they are located on Facebook’s new site.
“How users react to a Web site’s changes is unpredictable, but we are pretty confident one way or another that users will want to receive fun and entertainment from our applications,” he said.
Opening its platform to outside developers that design creative applications for Facebook users was deemed a key factor in the website’s success.
Palihapitiya said Facebook is willing to work with other Internet firms, including Google, to make it possible for members of online communities to freely move their personal content between websites.
“We want users’ information to be private, secure and respected,” Palihapitiya, said in a statement.