(CNN) -- Here we go again.
Facebook has made big changes to users' pages, and people are responding in droves with their metaphorical "dislike" buttons.
News Feeds were popping with not-so-gentle complaints Wednesday as many of the social-networking behemoth's 750 million users began seeing the overhaul.
"This is absolutely the worst of the many wrong-headed 'improvements' you have made, and that's quite a feat," a user named Franklin Habit wrote on the site's official Facebook page. "I think Facebook's usefulness to me has now been outstripped by its lack of ease in use."
Others were more succinct.
"This sucks," wrote user Brandon Howell. "That is all."
To be fair, griping about Facebook changes is a time-honored hallmark of the site. Change is hard for some people, and users grumble every time Facebook revamps their pages.
And it's perhaps a touch on the ironic side that many of the current complaints are coming from folks who, in turn, complained in December when the current format was rolled out. Or the time before. And the time before that.
Which isn't to say that the changes aren't pretty dramatic.
Instead of defaulting to your friends' most recent posts, the News Feed (which people hated when it was introduced) is now topped in many cases by what Facebook calls "Top Stories" for you. It uses an algorithm that combines such factors as which friends you interact with most and which friends' posts have the most comments and "likes" on them.
That algorithm, of course, was in its infancy on Wednesday, leading many users to say the top stories that Facebook suggested were random, at best.
"The 'top stories' needs to be gotten rid of," wrote user Kristy Montaney. "They're out of context and I want to check my News Feed from most recent to oldest, none of this 'top stories' stuff."
In a post on The Facebook Blog, developer Mark Tonkelowitz said the idea is to help people who may not log in to the site all the time find the best content, not just the newest.
"Now, News Feed will act more like your own personal newspaper," he wrote. "You won't have to worry about missing important stuff. All your news will be in a single stream with the most interesting stories featured at the top."
If you check Facebook more frequently, he said, you'll see newer stories at the top of your feed.
The other most glaring change Wednesday was a new, scrolling rail on the right side of the home page. Facebook calls it The Ticker. We're partial to "The ADD Bar," because the feature seems pitched to our attention-deficit lifestyles with its rapidly streaming nuggets of friends' activity.
If a friend "likes" an update, comments on a post or subscribes to a page, it now pops up in the -- OK, we'll say it -- somewhat Twitter-like timeline.
Haters were calling it distracting. But Tonkelowitz believes the Ticker plugs the gap in the time lag the News Feed sometimes experiences, letting users have more real-time interactions.
One apparent quirk of the Ticker is that when a friend interacts with a nonfriend (say, likes the status update of someone you're not friends with), clicking on that activity will show the original post.
Tonkelowitz's blog post said the Ticker "shows you the same stuff you were already seeing on Facebook." But, Wednesday morning, clicking on a few items there seemed to show updates and other posts by nonfriends, even when those users' privacy settings appeared to make their posts private.
Facebook did not immediately respond Wednesday to a message seeking clarification on how that feature works. The company may explain the new changes further at f8, its annual conference, on Thursday.
In the history of Facebook changes, the pattern has typically been that users complain loudly at first and threaten to leave the site but then eventually learn to live with, if not like, the new approach.
This time may be somewhat more interesting in that it's the first major Facebook overhaul since Google rolled out its rival social networking site, Google+.
Many of the anti-change posts Wednesday were coupled with threats to defect to Google+ if things aren't changed back.
And interestingly -- and, we have to assume, coincidentally -- the Facebook overhaul was announced on the same day that Google+, previously an invite-only affair, was opened to the public.
大意:
臉書再次改版, 而此次改版像過往一樣得到使用者的反彈. 而對這次改版的反對聲音也可以在News Feed上找到.
有使用者說這次改版是在臉書多次爛改版之中最差勁的一個, 而對他來說臉書不再像以前那樣簡單易用, 所以對他來講相對的也少了運用價值.
其實臉書改版已經變成了他們發展中的一個標記, 大部分的人對不喜歡改變, 所以在臉書每次改版過後都會有許多使用者反彈.
而現在許多提出抱怨的使用者大多是在過去改版時持有類似意見的人. 但這並不表示這次不是所謂的大改版.
此次改版的兩大重點為「動態訊息整合」及「朋友即時動態輪播」，在「動態訊息整合」上，原本需手動切換的最新動態和人氣動態，現在改為合併在同一個塗鴨 牆，上方的人氣動態將顯示使用者平常較有在關注的朋友訊息，下方的最新動態則顯示所有有被更新過的朋友動態。當然使用者可依關注程度，在訊息的左上方藍色 三角型切換鈕自行切換單訊息是否為人氣動態。當離開facebook一段時間再次回到頁面時，它也會貼心地顯示這段時間，有多少未讀的新訊息在塗鴨牆上。
但是這個針對「動態訊息整合」運算關心程度的公式在剛推出來的期間令許多使用者感到他非常的沒有規律, 也捉模不到使用者真正關心的朋友. 有使用者指出他想要看到得是最新消息而不是這個不合情理的新功能.
在The Facebook Blog上研發人員Mark Tonkelowitz說這個新的設計是希望能夠幫助比較不頻繁的使用者. 他還說「動態訊息整合」就像是為使用者獨身訂做的報紙一樣, 使用者無須擔心會漏掉朋友的重要更新, 而最有去的故事將會被頂置. 對頻繁使用者而言, 你所看到的頂置訊息會是朋友最新的資訊.
在介面又上方的「朋友即時動態輪播」對反對者而言他們覺得太令人分散注意了. 但是Tonkelwoitz認為這個新功能補足了之前News Feed在時間間格上的缺陷, 而讓使用者可以即時的互動. 可是同時在改版後第二天早上, 用戶發現在點擊朋友即時動態輪播」時居然可以看到非自己好友應該隱藏的訊息. 在星期三(臉書改版第二天)臉書並未針對這個問題提出答案, 臉書可能選擇在星期四的F8會議中對此加以解說.
在過往臉書進行改版過後, 許多使用者更變的功能感到相當不滿, 很多揚言要離開臉書, 但是最終還是都慢慢去適應新的功能. 但是這次與以往不同的昰Google的社交平台Google+也已經正式開放. 許多威脅說若是臉書改回原本的樣子, 會轉向Google+. 值得一提得是,臉書這次改版與google+宣佈公開選在同一日.
心得:
Facebook在剛起步的時候很快的就打倒了競爭者而獨佔了這個市場. 其實當初他是怎麼脫穎而已經不重要了. 我們現在應該考慮得應該是他是不是變得太誇張了, 在幾次的改版時出現了好有狀態新聞 (News Feed), 給我們很快的就可以閱讀朋友們的最新消息, 無論是照片或近況. 最開始facebook增加此功能時, 也有相當的反對聲浪, 但是慢慢的大家就也接受了, 而在現在最新版的右上角所出現的「朋友即時動態輪播」讓我們馬上就可以看到朋友正在做些什麼. 我個人認為那滿足了我們每個人心中的小狗仔, 但同時是否也變成了一種惡性循環. 現代人在面對面相處的時候感覺昰那麼疏遠, 但是在網路世界卻要營造這種好像很親密的假象, 是否變得本末倒置. 如果說一個媒體體制話後就會專制, 那到底這類設計是因為他們為了要滿足我們的狗仔心態而設計形成的? 還是昰他們想要我們變成狗仔而設計出來引導我們的工具?
這種經常需要改變背後的心態是什麼?它真正是消費者要的嗎?
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