I logged onto Facebook yesterday to see the  ‘The new Facebook is here Try it now’ bar across the top of my profile. I am always cautious and went looking for some information from facebook about this ‘new face book’.  I didn’t locate any official Face book notifications so I began my Google quest.

Yes Face book is launching a new layout and interface experience for their users and it appears that eventually we will have to accept the new design.  So I gave in and switched.

Here is the before:

And the after:

My first impression. They messed with something that worked for me and the new Tab system will mean I will have to spend more time on Facebook. Yes, it just takes a moment to  ‘open a tab’ but all those just a moments in my life add up to a large amount of time.

If I worked for FaceBook I’d say great ! more page views means more advertising revenue. As a  user it stinks.

The rumours are true when you switch all of your wall posts and updates are in ONE place.This is cumbersome when you are searching for a specific post. However the ability to adjust your privacy settings right there at the wall post is great.

There are some things I really don’t like however there are an equal number of new features I do like.

Here are some of the new features:

Tabs:

The Publisher area: Action items (things you do) I like this feature, it will save me time

Click on Write a note and the box expands:

This is interesting for those of us in Marketing:

Seems Facebook is asking users to ‘rate ads’. I know that these ads are Cost per click. But the ads CTR is going to go down the tubs as I am sure people will opt to  ‘rate’ the ads instead of clicking them. Essentially turning their ads into  ‘display ads’ as apposed to interactive. The users interaction is going to be rating the ad not interacting with the advertisers wish for them to CLICK the ad.

Really this doesn’t make sense if their ads are sold on s CPC basis they should be encouraging clicks not ratings.