Thursday, September 22, 2011

Facebook: Social Media's Jack of All Trades, Master of None

After spending a week in Boise, ID on vacation, I come back home to find some pretty dramatic changes to Facebook's home page.

Aside from the slightly darker blue border on top (the first thing I noticed), the biggest change is addition of a timeline on the sidebar. This timeline serves as the "Recent News" feed, while the main column on the home page has become the "Top News" feed.

If Facebook's new layout is a bit confusing, check out this shorthand graph I found yesterday.

The point is that Facebook essentially took their existing friends feature, added the fast-paced, short feed style of Twitter on to its sidebar, and threw in a Google Plus-like top stories feed. By doing so, Facebook has certainly broadened its scope in terms of social media features, but at the same time weakening the depth and strength of those features.

However, there are still plenty more Facebook changes coming as we speak since Mark Zuckerberg is holding his annual f8 conference. I'll cover some of the highlights in tomorrow's Facebook Friday post.