Greetings All.

Today, I thought i'd take a quick look at the new facebook. (Since mine swapped over today!) So what's changed? It's mainly layout improvements; supposedly making it easier to find things. If I'm honest, keeping it the same for more than 6 months would make it easier to find things!

So if you have been locked in a small room without internet access for the past 5 years, let me explain simply what facebook is..

"Social Networking" is a term now widely used by both the media and professionals to describe websites such as Facebook, Myspace & Bebo to name a few. They are designed to let you socialise with friends, let you meet new people and effectively take over your life. They are based around you connecting with people and becoming 'friends'. Lets look at Facebook. Everyone has a profile where you can enter info about yourself, upload photos and videos, and post status updates onto your wall. Anyone can write on any friends wall to send them a message that anyone can read. (Sometimes not as some websites have privacy settings, but for now lets keep things simple.) Events can be created for parties, gigs, meetings etc. and friends can be invited to attend. Facebook also has a realtime chat system 'popchat' that lets you talk to your online friends (Instant Messaging like MSN)

So, hopefully you have an idea of what facebook is now. (If for some random reason you didn't..)

Right, down to business. The re-design... Here is a screenshot I took (whilst trying not to be distracted by whats happening in the news feed.. no honestly that didn't happen..)

(Yes the photoshop blur tool came in handy..)

So Here is what the layout looks like. Fairly similar to the older one.

1) The new side-bar

Okay, so this looks fairly neat. Everything you could need in one nicely organised place. Not too sure what's happening with the photo's page. Seems to be lots of random photos and albums. Perhaps some sort of ordering is needed? Maybe it's just me not paying attention but I can't say I'd find it handy.

The rest of the links are as they were before. Notice the 'Live Feed' is now called 'Most recent' I have no idea why I wouldn't want to know what's happening 'now' as most users are logged on quite alot. The news feed is down to facebook to decide what's hot stuff in you life and what you might be interested in. Greeeaatt..

2) Comments Etc.

Well, this part has stayed the same really. Comments and Likes are all in the same place.

3) Search Bar

If I remember correctly, this was at the top right of the old page. I personally didnt use it much. But as I discovered today, it's come in handy. Perhaps this was because I didn't instinctively know where anything was? But it works! and will probably be used quite alot! (Searching for friends etc.)

4) Requests

Yep, all still the same. Still not sure why people bother inviting others to applications as I rarely accept them. You never know; I gues something may come up that pushes the right buttons!

5) Online Friends

This is a new addition to the update. Showing who's online on the home page in my opinion is a great idea. It really encourages people to talk to one-another; rather than opening up pop-chat occasionally.

6) Pop-Chat

Talking of pop-chat.. Remember all the times where is hasn't worked? Well, so far it seems to be better. Not sure if anything has actually changed or if it's just me. Although it did seem to slow the whole browser down alot; freezing frequently. So not quite there yet. (I do like the fact that the bottom bar has disappeared!)

So there it was, a quick rough review of the Facebook Update. Sorry to have bored you; I'm sure there'll be more opinions in comments below!! :)

James.