Face-lift for Facebook – Summarizing the F8 Aftermath

September 26, 2011

Creative

Lad Makinde

Last week Facebook had the digital world buzzing with an abundance of announcements at its F8 conference. Online most of the immediate chatter went one of the following ways:

1. An overall annoyance and anger at Facebook for changing its layout and features for the umpteenth time!
2. Excitement and anticipation for the changes and additions, not to mention countless questions as to what the changes meant for consumers and marketers alike.

Taking the positive approach, this post deals with the latter and what we can expect from the “new and improved Facebook”!

What are the current changes/additions that Facebook announced?

News Feed –
All news is now in one place; this includes posts, photo tags, friend requests, event updates, group memberships and more. Facebook will list the “most important” stories first, a feature they’re calling “Top Stories”.

For many this topic in particular has been a great cause of frustration. The bottom line is people don’t want to be forced into stalking their friends and acquaintances. This is a great point because we all know stalking should be done creatively and out of a one’s own volition. In other words Facebook please don’t force me to stalk people I wasn’t ready to stalk yet. (Learn how to control what you see in your news feed)

List Features –
Facebook has had lists for a while but most people either didn’t care or didn’t even know they were available. To fix this Facebook responded how they usually do by forcing users to use the function. In this case users should be grateful because lists are actually a very useful and great way to filter content. From co-workers, to family, and even amongst your friends Facebook allows you to organize your lists to fit your preferences. I’m especially a fan of the “acquaintances” list feature which allows a user to separate real friends from acquaintances. (That’s about 95% of my friends on Facebook). The people on the acquaintances list will rarely show up on your news feed and you can also choose to exclude these people when you post something. I love it! The days of bullying and excluding others are back! (Find out more about lists)

Ticker –
Ticker aka the ultimate real time stalking tool gives users unprecedented access to every single Facebook activity their friends engage in. I know I said I was going to be positive but let’s be real, the ticker is a bit obnoxious and it really goes back to what I said about stalking. Facebook you can’t just take over stalking for users, don’t you get it!? Sheesh! With all that being said there is a bit of a silver lining here, ticker only displays information that you’re already able to see elsewhere on Facebook. So, all this means is that users should set more stringent settings on what they share, which in turn affects what others will see on the ticker. Finally, Chrome users can remove the function altogether, to find out how see the video below.

(Find out more about Ticker)

What are the upcoming/yet to be implemented changes that Facebook announced?

Timeline –
Of all the changes to come this one was by far the most talked about and rightfully so. The timeline feature marks the first time since its inception that Facebook will make significant changes to the appearance of a profile page. The concept is simple enough, just think scrapbooking online. There are three major areas in this new profile and they are as follows:

• The cover – or an oversized image that represents the user best (Users can choose whatever image they want)
• Stories – Allows users to share their most memorable posts, photos, and life events on their timelines.
• Apps- This is essentially a place for all the media and activities that you like. Everything from music, to movies, to brands etc.
(A preview of the new timeline profile)

Essentially the timeline is a summary of a user’s entire existence on Facebook. (Raise your hand if you’re a bit concerned!) For marketers this opens up even more opportunity to target consumers based on what they’re truly entertained by. As Mark Zuckerberg stated during F8, the more sharing options means more opportunities for advertisers to pay to promote. With users sharing real activities and with more ways to share, the availability of this information will only increase.

Want to see all the changes/re-changes (not a word) that Facebook has made in the last year? This list is quite interesting and I bet there are some on here that you don’t remember or didn’t even know about. (Facebook’s ever changing face)