Facebook just came out with their new layout. From what I’ve seen on the internets, most people hate it.
I’m not a very heavy Facebook user, so maybe I’m not hitting all the use-cases that my fellow internet citizens are hitting. The only problem I can see with the new layout is that “info” and “wall” now live in separate tabs. Even this is pretty acceptable for me. The wall and info sections of a profile usually work separately, so not having the context of one while using the other is not cumbersome.
If I had to guess (and I do), I’d say that they are trying to “solve” profiles with too many apps installed. There’s simply no way that 10 independently developed applications can live on a single page harmoniously. The page becomes too busy with all the uselesdifferent apps competing for screen real estate. By creating a tab for each app, sane Facebook users can install more apps without worrying about their MySpace tendencies shining through. To put it another way, with a fixed amount of profile screen real-estate, the benefit of adding a new app diminishes with each installation. With the new layout, you get more screen space as you install apps, and they can be as useful as they can possibly be.
Which brings me to what I really wanted to say: once an interface (UI or API) is public, anything short of opt-in incremental changes are going to cause public uproar. This is regardless of the benefits, the change itself is most burdensome for the users.
