So do you like the new Facebook design? You had better like it, because it will be your only choice in a week. Facebook will no longer allow users to revert back to the old version, which many are choosing to do. In fact, a group has started petitioning Facebook to allow users to keep using the old version. The group currently has 650,000 members and is growing exponentially.

That is a lot of people, but it’s easy to understand why Facebook wouldn’t want to deal with support for two different layouts. In fact, it’s actually sort of ridiculous that they should be expected to keep both layouts. But it’s partly their own fault that they rolled out the new Facebook in one massive launch rather than slowly leeching out features. It was inevitable there would be a bit of a shock to the system when people are told the old Facebook is going to be eliminated.

I don’t have a ton of apps or Facebook friends, so I actually prefer the old version myself. I enjoyed the fact that my friends could see my apps on the front page to see, for instance, what I was Digging or Twittering.

But the change was necessary and it’s a good layout. It just takes some getting used to. I highly doubt people will leave, and if they do, it won’t be very many. But it’s never good business to tick off a million people. Like many things with Facebook, it could have been handled a lot better than it was.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 7th, 2008 at 11:31 pmand is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.