Having nearly tripled its audience and added about 20,000 new applications over the past year, Facebook Inc.’s popular online hangout is about to undergo a housecleaning.
Visitors who can’t stand the clutter that has been piling up will be glad to see that the site’s new look sweeps disparate bits of information into categories marked by tabs at the top of each user’s customized home page.
Basic personal background and interests will be filed under an “info” tab, for instance, while news about their buddies’ latest activities will land under a “feed” tab, pictures will be corralled in a “photo” section and applications will be located under a “programs” tab.
That content is now scattered, creating a confusing mishmash that has frustrated some Facebook users.
The facelift, in the works since January, is to debut in June.
Besides tidying the site, the overhaul should give users more control over their profiles, said Facebook. Users will be able to magnify information they want to emphasize and downplay other features, for example.
Even so, many users are likely to protest, said Mark Slee, the Facebook product manager overseeing the facelift.
“Change is difficult for our users, even positive changes,” Slee said. “But we are pretty confident that we can walk everyone through this so they will be engaged with the changes and enjoy them.”
Facebook has had to quell two user rebellions since Mark Zuckerberg started the site a little over four years ago while an undergraduate at Harvard University.
In 2006, users railed against a feature called “news feed” as too intrusive because it shared too much information about their activities. Late last year, Zuckerberg apologized after a tracking tool called “Beacon” caught users off guard by broadcasting information about their shopping habits and personal preferences expressed by their activity at other websites. Facebook decided to allow users to turn off Beacon, diminishing its reach and possible value to advertisers.
