A Tour of the “New” Facebook
As I just stated earlier, Facebook has given users the option to switch over to the new version of their site. I decided I would and then throw up a little introduction here for you guys.
Welcome to the new Facebook. Oh wait, I didn’t have to say that here, it already says it on that little bar at the top. Yay! This is the new homepage. It feels almost like a mobile webpage to me at least, however looks much nicer. Less angles and more rounded-edges make it into a nicer looking and more “I want to use that site!” environment. (Something PCS should probably worry about…)
As you can see, you’ve still got your new little Facebook chatbar… not much has changed about that. At the top though along with our mini-feed, we have some links to do things such as add photos and videos… something inexperienced users once had problems with in the past. Additionally your applications and “bookmarks” are now positioned on the right side-bar too, taking out the need for a three-column layout. Looks nice, right? At the top right you’ll find your old handy search bar, and if you hover over that lock icon it’ll hook you up with your account and privacy settings, as well as the logout button.
People were freaking out when they heard the profiles would be changed. I don’t know why, really… they look awesome compared to their predecessors! Your “wall” which once only housed “comments” made by other users is now the HQ for basically everything. Facebook basically merged the ideas of a wall and a mini-feed into one.
One thing you may be thinking is “what if you just want to see your wall posts only?” Well you can still do that quite easily.
This little filter you may have noticed lets you switch between what you want to see. The “posts by Andrew” (in my case) button will show only my activities such as photos I’ve uploaded, posts I’ve made, etc. The “posts by others” filter will show only messages people left you. Very easy, very clean, very nice. LOVE IT.
Another thing you can do here is manage the size and appearance of items on your wall. When you hover your cursor over the item, you’ll see the little “edit” link that you can click and a menu will appear.
Here’s it shows a comment I left on a friend’s photo in “short” form. It seems to be the standard here on the new wall. When I hit “One-line” though, it’ll shorten the display to:
ONE LINE!!!
Now, on the side of your wall page you’ll see your new basic information box. You can easily customize what you want displayed there:
Sweetness!!!
Lastly, you’ll also see the “publisher” tabs… which are actually above the whole feed system… why didn’t I cover this first? Oh well… but yeah, you can post stuff directly to your profile (and wall) from there. Okay we’re done here!
So you’ve seen the new page and on the top navigation bar there’s no “(edit)” link next to your profile. What do you do?! How do you edit it?! Is this the end of the world?! No.
Oh THANK JESUS! It’s the “info” tab!
The “info” tab gives you access to that user’s well… information! Browse through everything, write down their address… phone number… stalk.. er.. I mean, invite out for pizza and the movies. Yeah, that.
If you’re on your own profile, you’ll see the “edit information” button at the top right. Simply hit it and it will replace the page with the new profile editor. Easy to use, no annoying lame stuff, just fill stuff in and go!
Oh yeah, if you’re looking to change your profile picture, you can do that by hovering your cursor over it. You’ll see the option appear on it.
Next stop… photos tab!
There you can find all the wonderful photos of that person you’re stalking learning about. You can browse through pages with ease which is a very nice thing. Instead of having to load a whole new page, just hit next and the section will slide away and a new one will go in its place. (Yes, its animated, and cool, if you don’t like it, I won’t like you.)
Nothing else to talk about there.
Our last stop is the “boxes” tab!
The “boxes” tab houses all the applications you’ve added and pestered your friends with invites with. You can set some applications to be visible on your other tabs such as the wall tab… I’m not having much luck in figuring that one out though. But pretty much, there they all are. Makes life much easier for us if we’re viewing someone’s profile who is obsessed with apps and loading their profile uses about 2MB of Bandwidth. (Try monitoring your network connection here and there… you’ll be amazed.)
Well that pretty much concludes this tour of the new Facebook! Hope you enjoyed, because I do believe it was most enjoyable. There may be a few things I didn’t cover here, but that’s just because they’re obvious or haven’t changed much.
Feel free to leave comments here!
