The "new' Facebook
Written on 12:26 AM by DRV
Like every other college student, I spend a lot of time on Facebook. I don't particularly know why we go about this phenomenon, but it's really a good treatment for boredom. It's different from Friendster and MySpace in the sense that in Facebook it's easier to come across acquaintances (I don't say friends, because you can't all the people you "know" your "friends.") Also, since it doesn't allow much HTML, custom backgrounds and themes are out of the question--which make Facebook a cleaner, and more responsive website than a lot of the other trash there is online.
One of Facebook's formerly original features was the "Status Update," which has since then been ripped off by MySpace, with the only original feature they have being people's moods. It doesn't really end there, though. The popularity of the Status Update has allowed a new website to come onto the scene that was developed last summer--Twitter.
Twitter is simple. All you do on that site is update your status by answering the age-old question, "What are you doing?" Now, Twitter has been installed into pretty much everyone's phones and mobile devices, with people Twittering left and right. In Twitter, instead of friends, you have followers, and you also have the option of following other people.
How does this relate to the new Facebook? Well, Facebook has taken a page out of MySpace's book by trying to eliminate the competition by joining in with the fun. For an example, sign up for your own Twitter feed and compare the homepages of both sites. They look pretty darn similar.
The change with Facebook isn't as drastic as the change that was made in late 2008, but now, instead of doing a re-design, they just changed the streamlined experience. A traditional homepage with Live Feed would tell us who wrote on other people's walls. While we still have that option, it's been changed to Person 1 > Person 2 "wall message here." This all just adds more awkwardness to the pages.
The most noteworthy change is in the profiles. Previously, in order to update your status, you had to clear it and then type it in. Now, it's a lot harder to differentiate your status and a wall post, so when you change your status--it makes it look like you wrote on your own wall.
So this is what we've come to. The new Facebook isn't lame... it just makes us look more lame than we are.
Thanks for making me realize I'm lame, Facebook. I'm going go Twitter now.
