The changing face of Facebook: profiles get lift

Venture Beat — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:50:03 -0800

Facebook is showing off a preview of its new profiles, that could significantly change the fate of many third-party Facebook applications.

As with Facebook’s many past changes, this one will change the rules, to condone certain app behavior while punishing others.

Now, profiles will rely on a horizontal tab interface, where you can click between your profile info (”about”), your wall — which appears to have been combined with your news feed — and your photos. You can also add tabs for your favorite applications. In other words, applications need to convince users to proactively add their applications into this narrow band of real estate. It’s also not clear if users can delete, say their wall and add in an applications version of the wall.

The move also is a more convenient integration of the news feed, which previously was your site homepage, which you had to navigate to through a small “home” button. I think it’s an open question whether or not users want their news feed and wall mixed, if that is indeed a change that gets implemented.

One also has to wonder how a few big applications will be affected. For example, where will RockYou’s Superwall application or Slide’s Funwall application will have a place in the new profile. These applications have in many cases replaced Facebook’s own wall (Facebook has been trying to kill off these applications, as a result, I hear). Perhaps Facebook designed this

Both of these companies have told me that having a place on Facebook’s (current) profiles is crucial to getting more users, because people spend most of their time on profiles. Both companies have managed to maintain robust usage — using these “walls” to show off videos and other applications.

In any case, Facebook seems to be taking a conservative approach than it has with its news feed or advertising efforts. The company is previewing the changes in this Facebook preview fan page, here.

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The changing face of Facebook: profiles get lift