Refuseniks told to shut their Facebook
If you’re one of the nearly one-million people who’ve signed petitions against the new look Facebook, you’ve now got two options: Love it, or leave it. Starting this week, there’ll no longer be an option to use the old design of the site.
The social networking site unveiled its new look in late July, a particularly ironic time: Facebook had just launched legal action against a German site for copying its original design. The change somewhat undermined the argument that the design was an integral part of Facebook’s success. And to pile on the irony, the new look immediately prompted accusations that Facebook had been heavily influenced by the design of FriendFeed, a site which brings together news updates about a user’s friends on a variety of websites.
Until this week’s changes, the new site design included a one-click option to return to the original format. Facebook says 75% of people who tried the new design stuck with it (an independent analyst pegs the figure at 60%), but some detractors were particularly vocal in their demands that the firm should not ditch the original version.
Chief among these was Scott Sanders, whose Facebook group protesting the changes recently attracted its one millionth member. He tells the BBC a Facebook product manager contacted him to explain the changes were to make the site more user-friendly.
There doesn’t seem much danger of the changes hurting Facebook, which passed the 100 million members mark last month. Even Sanders argues that “personally I think it’s a bit rash for people to say they will leave Facebook. It is still one of the best, if not the best, social networking site on the internet”.
Indeed, even those who passionately dislike the new look will probably find it too much hassle to switch to another site and copy across profiles and track down existing Facebook friends.
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