Facebook's Beta Re-Design Officially Launches

July 20, 2008 — 07:51 PM PDT — by Adam Ostrow —

Update (9:55PM PT): Facebook has issued a press release announcing the new design, indicating that “access to the new design will be limited at first and gradually become available to all.”

As expected, Facebook has officially rolled out the beta for its new design this evening. To get it, you can now to go www.new.facebook.com, which will convert the site to the new look. You can still roll back to the previous version by clicking a “Back to Old Facebook” link at the top of the site.

From top to bottom, the design is a lot cleaner than the current Facebook, and certainly is a big attempt to make the site less cluttered while placing an emphasis on a number of features – most notably the mini-feed and status updates. This is immediately noticeable in the homepage, where the new Facebook features just two columns versus the three in the old version, with requests, links, and other current homepage features consolidates on the right, with your News Feed on the left occupying the majority of the real estate.

Moving to the user profiles, as expected, user profiles are now tabbed, with the defaults being Wall (your feed and wall posts), Info (your profile info), Photos, and Boxes (applications). On your own profile, Facebook is clearly trying to push status updates, asking a variation of the very same question posed by Twitter “What are you doing right now?” Profiles are also now two columns, making more space for the mini-feed and the other new tabs.

So far, it’s unclear how Facebook plans to promote the new site to users and get them involved in the beta. While those of us in the tech blogosphere have been expecting the changes since early this year and been following each new twist and turn closely, it’s a major change in look and feel that will likely be dramatic for mainstream users.

Presumably Facebook has learned its lesson from previously poorly communicated roll outs like News Feed and Beacon, and so far has been doing an excellent job of keeping the developer community informed of the design changes. Meanwhile, keeping the option to revert to the old Facebook for a while should help Facebook weather what will surely be some confusion and anger from ever-fickle social networking users. There’s also a prominent link for users to submit their feedback on the new look.

Last week, when a preview of the new site was briefly available, our audience was decidedly split with their reviews, so it will be interesting to see your opinions now that the beta has officially arrived and working as expected. Let us know what you think in the comments.

http://mashable.com/2008/07/20/new-facebook-launches/

XCOM Media helps brands achieve the nirvana of one-to-one communication through online strategy and consultancy, design, development, web 2.0 and social networking, email marketing, mobile marketing, viral marketing, campaign management, technology and tools and analytics, with lower costs and higher returns than all other forms of marketing.

To view our work or to find out how XCOM Media can help your business contact us.