Facebook Is Responding!

Remember that Facebook redesign that happened? Yea, well at least I’ve stopped getting all these status updates about how horrible it is because we’re all getting used to it. However, if you’ve taken that poll about whether you like the new Facebook or not, you know that most people don’t. A whole bunch of Facebook users have vehemently protested the change and as a result of all that, Facebook has posted a pretty long blog post, talking about future changes. This post originated from Christopher Cox, the Director of Product. It sounds like Facebook is aiming to be the next big aggregation site and I’ve already begun to notice that I’m using it like so. I tag a whole lot more people in my notes now and import all kinds of crazy things because Facebook Connect is becoming more and more apparent in all the sites I visit. It’s just too easy to click the little “F” and tell the world about it. I mean, you’re informing everyone with one easy mouse click. Whether they want to deal with your incessant stream of notes, pictures, videos, comments, etc. is up to them. That’s what the “x” in the newsfeed is for. So you can X out the things you’d rather not see. Anyway, let’s summarize the blog post. If you want to read the whole thing yourself, just click here.

Alright, let’s get started. Seems like Facebook wants to listen to what their users have to say so they can “build a product that serves you better”. I like the sound of that. Anyway, these were the top things that they thought people on Facebook wanted to know about: I’;; just quote directly now.

“Add more control and relevance in the stream
One of the great parts of Facebook is the ability to share and consume different types of content, such as photos, videos and notes, all in one place. We’ve heard from you that you want even more variety and control in your stream, and for it to update automatically. Some specific improvements we’re making are:

Live updating: One of the most common requests is the ability to see your stream update automatically. We will be adding the ability to turn on auto updating in the near future so you no longer need to refresh the page.
Photo tags: In order to surface more photos you might like to see, we’ll be adding photos tagged of your friends to the stream. This will happen in the coming weeks.
More choices for applications: We’ve heard feedback that there is a lot of application content appearing in the stream. We will be giving you tools to control and reduce application content that your friends share into your stream.

Currently, the content filters on the left screen allow you to select the types of content you would like to see. Over time, we’ll continue to give you more control over what’s in your main stream and how you consume it. We have the eventual goal of building filters that summarize this activity so you can see a more condensed view of what’s been going on. We’re also thinking about ways of filtering out some of the Wall posts and content directed to specific people to focus more on posts shared with everyone.
See more Highlights
Right now, we’re making improvements to the Highlights section on the right-hand side of your home page. Highlights will update more frequently and will show you more content throughout the day to mirror more closely the content that the earlier News Feed provided.
Find things more easily
It’s important that you are able to find everything you’re interested in, or we’re not succeeding in giving you the right level of control. We’re currently working on a few design changes to help you find these things more easily, such as:

Moving requests to the top of the right column: Friend requests and event invites will be more prominent.
Easier way to create a Friends List filter: From the filters on the left, you will be able to create a new list of friends with which to filter the stream.

Application bookmarks continue to live in the toolbar at the bottom left of the page. You can quickly access your groups, events and other favorite applications from the bottom bar on any page.”

We shall see what they do. Oh, Facebook.