If you’re wondering why ENGLISH UK was trending on Twitter, it’s because the word was spreading as to how to revert back to the previous version of Facebook before a new set of changes were rolled out less than a day ago. For whatever reason, users who had their languages set to “English(UK)” were still seeing the old design – prompting a whole lot of people annoyed with the new design to decide they wanted to start seeing their social network alerts in the Queen’s English. (Apparently this was also the case for most every language but “English(US)”.)
This was a short-lived solution, however, because though it still seems to be working for some people, it’s not for others (including me). So if you hate the new Facebook design, you’re stuck with it.
There are two major differences in the new style. First, the “News” and “Most Recent” feeds have been conflated, essentially boiling down to a few “top stories” at the top of the feed, followed by all the rest in chronological order below. And second, there’s now a box in the upper righthand corner of all of your friends’ most recent activities. This is the third big change that Facebook has rolled out in less than two weeks, including a “lists” feature that seems a lot like Google+ circles. Interestingly, the timing corresponds to Google+ going public (no more invites needed).
The major complaint to the latest Facebook change seems to be that many users don’t want Facebook deciding who and what are most important to them. Fair enough, and I almost wonder if it might be helpful for their algorithm to have some personal training, rather like marking spam in an email account.
In the end, we’ve seen this before. (1) Social network makes changes; (2) Everyone freaks out because they don’t like change; (3) Everyone keeps using it anyway because it’s too much effort to go elsewhere; (4) Complaints die down and everyone gets used to it. And then there’s a change to that, and the cycle starts all over again.
Roll call: Who’s using Facebook vs Google+ these days? Both? Neither? And if you haven’t checked out Google+ yet, again, now is the time to sign up!
Image: Facebook button count is wrong, use RealShare / birgerking / CC BY 2.0