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Following hot on the heels of a copyright lawsuit filed against a German social Web site accused of stealing Facebook’s design and feature set, the massively popular social networking destination has this week turned user attention away from the courtroom and onto its upcoming second-generation site design.
Promising a cleaner and simpler aesthetic, Facebook is offering its expansive user base the tantalising opportunity to hop aboard the redesign bandwagon to preview and test the next-gen social networking features and functionalities that will soon be released for official consumption.
Specifically, Palo Alto-based Facebook is inviting members to sample its revamped design and put fresh features through their paces “by navigating back and forth between the new and current versions of the site.”
Naturally, given the 80 million users currently associated with Facebook, initial testing will be limited before the service is gradually rolled out across all of Facebook’s account holders in the next week or so.
According to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, feature elements open to user testing have been selected “in order to highlight the most recent and relevant information that users value,” which should, in turn, result in users being graced with even more control and ownership over their personal profiles.
“Facebook’s new design makes it a lot easier for users to share information,” he added, “and we encourage them to check it out.”
In development since the early part of 2008, Facebook’s second-generation design has already been sampled by a small portion of its users. Over the last six months, something close to around 100,000 Facebook account holders have actively offered their two cents regarding the ongoing evolution of its new layout and enhanced feature set.
Some of the new elements expected to arrive in the new design include Facebook feeds, which deliver news and information to users via personal and social context. The new feed focus will also work alongside the existing Wall application and will be used to deliver current and pertinent information related to a user and their approved Facebook friends.
Also accessed via the Wall tab, users will be able to enjoy the content-connected benefits of the Publisher feature, which allows the quick addition of photos, uploaded video clips and written notations without having to first root out or navigate to an individual application carrying such features. Publisher can also be used to post content on the profiles of approved friends.
That aforementioned cleaner and simpler design arrives courtesy of Facebook’s new Tab feature, which splits the user profile into clearly defined and easily accessible primary and secondary tabbed areas, which include Feed, Wall, Info, Photos, Application, Video and Boxes. Users can also create personalised Tabs to accommodate their favourite applications rather than having them cluttering up the main page.
The acquisition and acceptance of third-party applications has also been tweaked in the redesign thanks to a tighter integration that gives user the opportunity to interact with an app before deciding to add it, while permission must be granted to allow the app to access user information, and users will also be given the choice of deciding where to place their applications.
Facebook is keen to stress that its new design launch in no way alters any of the personal privacy settings that users currently have logged through their account profiles.
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