Facebook: Latest Additions and Observations

I woke up this morning, and--just as any other college student does--I checked facebook. I was greeted with a slick Web 2.0 update to what often seems to be the center of college life.

Two features were added, the "News Feed" which compiles all friend information updates into one slick interface and the "Mini Feed" which summarizes all of your recent activity on the college social networking site.

The reaction I have observed from nearly everyone that talks about it has been negative. Thanks to my "News Feed," I saw that many of my friends obligatorily created and joined new facebook groups proclaiming disdain for the updates.

I think, in the long run, the updates will be beneficial to everyone. Two of the hotter topics concerning facebook in recent months have been privacy (especially in regards to future employers) and facebook wasting hours upon hours of free time.

The feeds really add nothing new to facebook, they simply just organize the information that already exists. By doing this in a rather stalker-friendly way, it forces students to think twice about their actions on facebook.

In regards to the free time, you can just skim over your "News Feed" and be done with your facebook obligations for the next few hours. I don't know about you, but I'm all about saving time.

So, while the 9.5 million users will experience growing pains for a little while, they changes will be beneficial to everyone in the end.

For more reading, please see
New Facebook Redesign More Than Aesthetic and the facebook blog.