Big changes

Today I'm talkin' 'bout Facebook!

Whether you're an active user, fueled by lack of a job, say, or a limited Facebooker, you've no doubt noticed the changes to the homepage as of late.

This throws people for a loop. Every time.

Here's why: people don't like to see their favorite site change. At all. No no noooo to change. But as Slate writer Farhad Manjoo wrote in March after the last redesign,

"It used to be easy to get to people's photos and notes, but now you've got to click around to find anything. Are you at your wit's end? I've got news for you: You'll get over it soon enough."

The Facebook team knows not to take people's threats to abandon the site seriously. For example, Facebook came along with the NewsFeed in 2006. And people hated it, calling it obtrusive. This was before my time, of course, but can you imagine Facebook without its signature Newsfeed?

As I was saying with a new friend the other day, it makes stalking so obnoxiously easy.

In case you're confused, as I was, about this past week's redesign, here it is:

1. The "live feed" (which is based on an algorithm that scores every update coming through based on "likes," comments, and your past interactions with people) is now at the top of the page and shows the number of new items since your last visit.

2. Highlights and hot status updates are the default, called "news feed."

3. Birthdays and events have replaced the old "highlights," making it even less likely that you'll forget anyone's birthday ever, assuming they're your friend on the Facebook.

Of course, there's a group called "I Automatically Hate the New Facebook Homepage."
The group's descprition:
*I hate change and everything associated with it
*I want everything to remain static throughout my entire life.
*I do not know what I want from things I cannot control
*By logical deduction I automatically oppose the new Facebook streaming homepage.
*If I have to explain this group it is no longer funny.

Not surprisingly, Mark Zuckerberg and other staffers are members.

Even less surprising, people have joined thinking it's real.