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Yesterday evening Facebook announced that over 10,000 members have joined their Town Hall groups to discuss the future terms of Facebook but that’s not what users really want to talk about. Instead, approximately 200,000 users have installed a new application called “New Layout Vote” which does exactly that: let’s users vote on Facebook’s new layout.
The application has gained significant traction, growing from around 60,000 monthly active users yesterday to 200,000 today. The application could easily reach 1 million in the next few days if the growth stays at this rate. One thing that the application doesn’t currently provide is the results of their poll. Instead it just asks users to vote and provides a comment wall where most users appear to be complaining about the new design.
What’s interesting is that many users were surprised when the new layout showed up on their homepage. During the previous redesign, Facebook requested user feedback and many users were ultimately involved in the process. This time around Facebook went ahead without letting users participate in the discussion.
The layout vote application has generated a massive response. There are almost 400,000 comments and close to 1,000 comments are being posted each minute. Previous changes by Facebook have regularly drawn massive responses but thanks to the application’s invite feature, the app appears to be spreading virally.
Also of interest is that the new design has appeared to have the exact opposite effect of what was planned. Now that users know Facebook redesigned the site to mimic much of Twitter’s functionality, many Facebook users are signing up for Twitter. In the past few days, a large number of my friends who never used Twitter before have registered.
Many have told me that they decided to take the plunge into Twitter because they wanted to see what all the fuss was about since Facebook felt it necessary to change their design to be more like Twitter. Regardless of why users are joining Twitter, there is now an application to let you vote on whether or not you like the new design. My only question now is: where are the results?
Other question is: if negative votes win, will FB take into consideration the idea of reverting the Layout, or it’s just a waste of time?
The results are right there on the canvas page of the application. You have to vote to see the results. As I type this, the results are the following:
In favor: 40,652
Against : 655.965
If you vote, you CAN see the vote results (and they auto-update every few seconds). As of this moment?
40,686 like the new design
656,634 dislike the new design
Plus almost 400,000 comments have been left.
IMHO - most users who install the app to vote do it so they can vote “dislike”. More people take action when they feel negatively towards something than when they have a positive or neutral experience. It’s human nature.
Gary’s got it right. When people go out of their way to give feedback, it’s almost always negative. Such polls are basically invalid. It’s like asking sexuality questions in Saudi Arabia in a non-anonymous survey - you can predict the results before you start.
Two things I find quite interesting are that the application has a default icon, which screams “amateur” to me, and that when installing the application it asks for your name, email, birthday, and more. It looks like a spam harvesting machine riding the coattails of Facebook’s latest “controversy.”
41,755 like (~+14 per min)
680,075 dislike (~+300 per min)
406841 comments!
I’m also interested in who developed this application and what they’ll do with all of the user info they’ve collected on the people who have to install to vote. Almost every one of my friends who used this app to complain were shocked to hear it wasn’t an official Facebook app…
When I found out it was an app. I immediately uninstalled it.
The people who are “voting” for this think it will actually change things, it really wont.
What Ted and Gary are missing is that some 700,000 people so far have gone “out of their way” to install that app and vote. That’s still very significant - this isn’t reading 1 of 4 negative reviews for a place on CitySearch, people have mobilized here.
And wait… that’s not an official Facebook app? Then how did it get into my left side filters even though I hadn’t installed it? Redesign is confusing and poorly executed.
I’m sort of mad at both sides here. Facebook for changing too often and users for always complaining, most do it without a lot of substance/reasoning. Gary is right, I saw the app in my news feed a few times and I since I usually hate apps, I didn’t bother to install it to vote “for” the new design.
At any rate, facebook and twitter both have their uses for me and I just aggregate everything using Tweetdeck.
I don’t think it will make a lot of difference to Zuckerberg and his clique, but a 6% approval rating for the new layout is an damning evaluation for whatever ‘market research’ they claimed to have done beforehand.
It probably will not mean that 1 million users decide to leave, but it should be a wake-up call to the designers at facebook. The outcry over ‘new’ facebook was mostly over cosmetics, but this time they have changed the dynamics of how one interacts with ones social group and what kind of information is readily available in the not-really-real-time stream.
No, it is to jumbled and needs to be streamlined! Please the old one was much better.
It seems every time there is a facebook redesign there is a huge uproar amongst a vast majority of fb users, but most of the power users either like the change or don’t care one way or the other. It’s the same case this time around and I’m positive that in a few weeks this “outrage” will completely vanish.
Ironically enough, I see users interacting and sharing a lot more now in the new layout. So they basically hate the layout but use it more.
I opened an event, to take place March 28-30, wherein all who wish to take part shall temporarily deactivate their facebook account for the weekend. The idea behind it is in two parts. Part one being that when you deactivate your account, facebook wants to know the reason. Use the new layout as the reason. If enough people do it, they’ll get the message. Part two of this is that all of those companies paying to advertise on facebook will certainly hear about this if enough people do it. This will cause the advertisers to also join in the plea to change the format back to the old “new” layout. If you want to find the event, look for Protest The New Layout in events. Invite your friends. It’s easy to do, and it’s temporary.
The probme is that this isn’t just a cosmetic redesign, it’s a shift in the way the site works. There’s some huge changes and to be honest, I don’t like it at all.
If I wanted a Twitter account, I would’ve signed up to Twitter. Facebook has taken away so much that didn’t need taking away.
I voted NO in the app. We’re almost at 1,000,000 votes now.
And while I take the point above that most people who install the app will vote no because they’re more motivated, it still may end up being a significant number of votes. Even if Facebook don’t switch back to the old design, they might at least reinstate some of the features they’ve removed.
Its been a week since I got the new homepage, and I like it less and less every day. Even though I’m no longer LOSING stories when I refresh, I still have to refresh just to see updates. There is NO REAL TIME STREAMING even after a week. Also, if FB is so in awe/fear of Twitter, why then are we still losing news updates like friends friending each other, or the chronology of events as they happen? This is essentially taking away the social networking aspect of the entire site.
If FB is going to stick its users with this crap design, then at least make it work. Right now, this is going to crash and burn around them, I predict.
I don’t like applications, but added this one as it seemed the only way to tell Facebook how I felt. Since then, I’ve found the feedback link thanks to one of the groups about the new layout: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=uex_feedback_home I’ve sent Facebook feedback twice - intial impression, and impression after using the new layout for a few days.
I was not happy with the previous change, but it did have some benefits, especially with regards to cleaning up profiles that were littered with applications. However, this new layout is now littering my home page with people’s quizzes, application uses etc. It’s horrid. Everything is in huge font, and nothing can be shortened to one line anymore, not even on our own profile walls. If I don’t want to see a friend’s many application actions or quizzes, I have to hide all info about that friend, which isn’t what I want! I’d like to see their status update and when they add a new friend, that’s it. I don’t want to see everything else they do!!
I see no reason for this change, and if Facebook intends to stay like Twitter, I will deactivate my account. The only reason I’ve stayed so far is because I hope they will come to their senses. There are also privacy concerns with the new layout - I can see wall posts from my friends to people whose profiles I don’t have access to see. They have privacy settings only allowing friends to view their profiles, and yet Facebook are showing all friends of a friend whatever the friend is posting on the “hidden” profile. Not good, Facebook, not good.
As for the new format:
HATE IT; HATE IT; HATE IT!
This was 800,000 votes and a couple of days ago!
Now ONE MILLION THUMBS DOWN at 22:00 GMT on 20/March/2009
And still NO response from Facebook!
I do not like this new format. I hate the fact that I cannot see some friends news feeds, this is really irritating!!!! You really need to change the format back to the way it was before. I don’t know of anyone who likes this new way. Please change it back the old format was so much better!!