Facebook Groups Redesign Becomes Official

Last week we wrote about Facebook testing out a new design for Facebook groups which is almost identical to Facebook Pages. As of today, that new design has become official. One significant component of the upgraded version of groups is that updates to them will now be delivered to the homepage News Feed. With the new design the Pages versus Groups debate will continue to rage on.

It’s clear that the design of groups is almost identical to Facebook Pages and at this point there are few benefits of using groups over Pages which makes me think that the debate is moot to a certain extent. This new groups design also make one wonder whether or not groups will become a platform for applications. With over 45 million groups, it would only make sense to grant developers access to them.

For now we’ll have to wait and see how the groups evolve but this is most definitely a significant upgrade. While I’d like to personally see Facebook Pages and groups merge together, many users argue that Groups have their own use case. With tons of invites to groups about different issues I’ve stopped using them for the most part, however many users still flock to groups daily.

Do you think this redesign is useful? Should Facebook just merge groups and Pages or is there a reason for keeping groups?

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817532 Comments2009-10-19+20%3A46%3A20Nick+O%27Neill »

When does this change go into effect for all users? Is there a link to move to this change immediately?

Personally If there is no distinction between groups and pages it makes no difference to me. The pages make more sense to me as a designer, so I think this change in groups will be better for the user experience.

Comment by Nathan Stephens — October 19, 2009 @ 4:51 pm
They should not merge. Groups offer limited membership, which in some cases, is needed. There needs to be something of a re-purposing of groups, but it is better location for a small group of people to stay meaningfully organized.

However, for both groups and pages, the discussions application needs an upgrade for it’s notification system. I want more notifications about group discussions then is currently available.

Comment by Eric Godfrey — October 19, 2009 @ 5:23 pm
Actually, facebook’s post about the change states this perfectly: “Keep in mind that while Groups and Pages now look the same, they still serve different purposes. Groups are for fostering member-to-member collaboration, while Pages remain the best way to broadcast messages to your fans if you are a business, organization, public figure or other entity.”

Comment by Eric Godfrey — October 19, 2009 @ 5:25 pm
I can see/read there is a Publisher but it’s not clear to me: Can a Group admin publish an update into the Feed going to all members, thereby bypassing the current 5,000 member cut-off (i.e. as I understand it, you currently have no way to reach your members directly if the group is larger than 5,000 members)?

Comment by Jeff Strank — October 19, 2009 @ 5:42 pm
I have to be honest. I’ve been a Facebook member for nearly a year now, and I really never even knew that the Groups option existed! Glad to see that it is being brought forward where perhaps fewer people will end up missing it like me.

Comment by Ashley — October 19, 2009 @ 6:20 pm
stupid… Where’s the anti group against this change?

Comment by Matt Regan — October 19, 2009 @ 6:31 pm
They shouldn’t and won’t merge, Nick. There are clear distinctions between Pages (official, can drive content to stream) and Groups (unofficial, can be public, private, or secret, can’t drive content to stream).

Comment by Dave Kerpen — October 19, 2009 @ 8:35 pm
Try Groupsplus:
http://apps.facebook.com/groupsplus/landing.php

Comment by Cagri Tosun — October 19, 2009 @ 8:40 pm
yeah eric and dave have this exactly right. they’re set up for different use cases.

Comment by owen mack — October 19, 2009 @ 9:18 pm
I think each serves a distinct purpose. A page is generally a few to many communication mechanism, whereas a group can provide a great many-to-many communication experience.

For example, I help a local restaurant communicate with their customers via a Page – they accumulate fans, and can then communicate to a customer base.

I also am in a group for people who like to cook, and share recipes / photos of killer dinners they’ve made. A page doesn’t really suit this purpose, but a Group does.

I’d love to see Groups expanded so I could post to a group from the iPhone app.

Comment by Matt Smith — October 19, 2009 @ 11:18 pm
I totally agree that Pages and Groups should be merged. It’s hard enough maintaining one page–that’s why I chose not to do two. I wish Pages had the interactivity of Groups.

Comment by Joanne Glasspoole — October 20, 2009 @ 12:24 am
I am very disappointed in the change they have made to the groups section. I currently run a support group for abuse survivors and there are many members that have come to depend on the group for support. Now with the way the layout is, it has completely changed, it does not look like a support group at all. Just people shooting the shit, like on our regular personal pages. Also, I think you are all (including the people who run facebook) forgetting that there are groups that people want to belong to anon. so merging the pages and groups and posting newsfeeds for anything we post in the group, makes us not want to share with the group. My friends on my personal page do not need to read all of my thoughts in the group. This group is very personal and offers much support. It isn’t a stupid group like “I love ants” or whatever. It is of good use and is helping many people. Many of us do not want our friends reading our thoughts that we post to the group, but now when you post to the group, it goes in your personal page news feed for everyone in your friends to see. These friends are not connected to the group at all, and the group is a closed group so the content is
“supposed” to be private.

If anyone knows what I can do, or has any ideas of still having a support group but maybe not on facebook anymore, please let me know. I have always been a supporter of facebook and all it has to offer, but after what they have just done, it is going to negatively affect me and my members who are in dire need of the support. I don’t want to be a part of facebook anymore if that is the case.

Comment by jennifer — October 20, 2009 @ 12:35 am
thanks a lot facebook. you have totally screwed all of us that belong to groups. WTF. I need to figure out an alternative. As it stands, no one will want to share if everything gets posted to our newsfeeds…for people who aren’t in the group to… read. btw, the group is private so yea, this sucks.

Comment by jennifer — October 20, 2009 @ 12:54 am
I agree with joanne. Fan pages and groups should be merged because it’s hard to maintain both at the same time.

Comment by Facebook Application Developer — October 20, 2009 @ 2:46 am
One difference I have noticed, if you publish as an admin on a Page, it shows up as the Page as the post author. On a group, it still shows up as your personal account being the author

Comment by James Clark Embree — October 20, 2009 @ 2:50 am
all it does is drive up the ads exposure (right hand side) and improve facebook’s revenue.

the design looks confusing
you cant see the officers unless you scroll way way down

Comment by pathetic — October 20, 2009 @ 4:08 am
The new design sucks.Generally I dont like the design of pages.Wall Posts should not be the main feature of the page.They should leave the Groups like that or they should have come up with a better design that doesnt give high visibility to wall posts.Facebook has bad designers with no clue.They should take a tip or two from MySpace,at least on the designing front.

Comment by Derrick — October 20, 2009 @ 7:23 am
I stopped using them only because I always forgot about the discussions. Now that they’ll be in the news feed, I won;t forget about them and will probably go back to using groups again.

Comment by Mike — October 20, 2009 @ 9:02 am
Facebook should distinguish between pages and groups.

Comment by facebook applications developers — October 20, 2009 @ 10:09 am
I desperately want to see group chat capability on group pages. I am a new user, and quite frankly I am confused as t which is better for my group (very small). I have created both a group page and an app page. I like the feature on the app page that feeds me info on the page’s activity. The posts look better also, but we need more features and capablities that allow us to blog, twitter, or other social inovations.
Thanks for what you do, and for simple answers for people like me.
Butch Howard – Let’s Study Revelation!

Comment by Butch Howard — October 20, 2009 @ 10:41 am
Is there a way that a business owner who admins a group and runs a page could automatically push messages/events between the discussion/message areas in both spaces?

Comment by Bruce Christensen — October 20, 2009 @ 10:58 am
Is this actually working for people? I’m not seeing Group wall posts in my news feed. I do now see a “Groups” filter with some posts (not immediately updated) in the filter list at right (under the “More” tab), but not in the default feed?

Comment by JD — October 20, 2009 @ 11:41 am
i use groups much more than i use pages. i hate the new design for the groups because i can’t easily see every thing in the main page from one quick look. i do not usually care much about pages. now they look the same! if they keep that design, i would use facebook less than i used to.

Comment by group user — October 20, 2009 @ 11:45 am
I do not like the new group format. The purpose of the group was to have the option of anonymity; to engage a large or small group of people without geographic limitations, that had similar concerns or needs that chose to share these with trusted members IN PRIVATE. With facebook and twitter, why do we ned another public display?

I and my group are seriously disappointed. We will have to leave facebook and find a new venue that fits our needs. It is a especially disappointing because the facebook group page was working so beautifully. It really was perfect.

Comment by private group administrator — October 21, 2009 @ 12:39 am
my group front page has just been messed up with the new layout!

I can’t fix it because when I try to edit it, it gives me a tiny box to put it in and it doesn’t recognize a new line!!!

help!!!!!!!

Comment by Rick Lawson — October 21, 2009 @ 9:42 am
any one know how to deal with the new design of groups in facebook? how to make filter between the admin posts and the members ?

and how to get short address for facebook group ?

Comment by iSuha — October 21, 2009 @ 11:01 am
After weighing up the options, I chose a Group to utilise as the communication hub, of our group of friends. Privacy was necesary, and so was ease of communication and displaying information.

Now – that choice has been negated, by making Groups act as personal profile walls. We dont want our private discussions being published, we want to be able to post highlights, and be able to view latest discussions all on the same page, at the same time, without having to navigate multiple pages, and having posts truncated!!!

What a slap in the face!

I would say that it now looks like a 5yr old designed the Group page – but I dont want to insult any 5yr olds!!!

Come on FarceBook – get ur $#$%^ together!!!
At least give us the option to revert to the old format, if it suits us better!!!

Comment by TotallyAgainstNewDesign — October 22, 2009 @ 12:24 am
I hate the new layout of Groups. The whole idea of setting up a group was to give “Information” and to be different from a “Personal” page.

Now when you click on a group you go to an irritating “Wall” page, and have to do another click to get to the “Info” page . . . what a waste of time.

Also on the “Info” page, the information is now abbreviated and you have to click “View More” if you want to read the whole page. What the heck is the point of requiring yet another click? It’s only text for G*d’s sakes !!

Facebook messes up yet again. It worked ok before. Please put it back as it was.

Comment by Trevor George — October 23, 2009 @ 3:45 am
I’m writing a book about Facebook, and slightly annoyed that Facebook didn’t even have the courtesy to inform group administrators that changes would be coming. I was kind of surprised that all the photos that group members had carefully uploaded were taken off the group page!

Comment by Todd Kelsey — October 23, 2009 @ 7:16 pm
I hate the new design and so does a lot of my Facebook friends. Just leave well enough alone, my goodness.

Comment by cindy — October 24, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
ooooh sorry for what i say but ireally annoyed from this new system as simbly i cann’t deal with it

Comment by sarah — April 29, 2010 @ 6:52 pm
I think they should have an option to merge so that users can still use groups / pages for their own purposes. This helps with making Facebook more organized as some groups cannot be deleted due to the number of users who joined. It is impossible to delete the group unless all joiners leave the group. As a result, this may cause confusion.

Comment by Vera — November 13, 2010 @ 9:25 am

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When does this change go into effect for all users? Is there a link to move to this change immediately?

Personally If there is no distinction between groups and pages it makes no difference to me. The pages make more sense to me as a designer, so I think this change in groups will be better for the user experience.

Comment by Nathan Stephens — October 19, 2009 @ 4:51 pm

They should not merge. Groups offer limited membership, which in some cases, is needed. There needs to be something of a re-purposing of groups, but it is better location for a small group of people to stay meaningfully organized.

However, for both groups and pages, the discussions application needs an upgrade for it’s notification system. I want more notifications about group discussions then is currently available.

Comment by Eric Godfrey — October 19, 2009 @ 5:23 pm

Actually, facebook’s post about the change states this perfectly: “Keep in mind that while Groups and Pages now look the same, they still serve different purposes. Groups are for fostering member-to-member collaboration, while Pages remain the best way to broadcast messages to your fans if you are a business, organization, public figure or other entity.”

Comment by Eric Godfrey — October 19, 2009 @ 5:25 pm

I can see/read there is a Publisher but it’s not clear to me: Can a Group admin publish an update into the Feed going to all members, thereby bypassing the current 5,000 member cut-off (i.e. as I understand it, you currently have no way to reach your members directly if the group is larger than 5,000 members)?

Comment by Jeff Strank — October 19, 2009 @ 5:42 pm

I have to be honest. I’ve been a Facebook member for nearly a year now, and I really never even knew that the Groups option existed! Glad to see that it is being brought forward where perhaps fewer people will end up missing it like me.

Comment by Ashley — October 19, 2009 @ 6:20 pm

stupid… Where’s the anti group against this change?

Comment by Matt Regan — October 19, 2009 @ 6:31 pm

They shouldn’t and won’t merge, Nick. There are clear distinctions between Pages (official, can drive content to stream) and Groups (unofficial, can be public, private, or secret, can’t drive content to stream).

Comment by Dave Kerpen — October 19, 2009 @ 8:35 pm

Try Groupsplus:
http://apps.facebook.com/groupsplus/landing.php

Comment by Cagri Tosun — October 19, 2009 @ 8:40 pm

yeah eric and dave have this exactly right. they’re set up for different use cases.

Comment by owen mack — October 19, 2009 @ 9:18 pm

I think each serves a distinct purpose. A page is generally a few to many communication mechanism, whereas a group can provide a great many-to-many communication experience.

For example, I help a local restaurant communicate with their customers via a Page – they accumulate fans, and can then communicate to a customer base.

I also am in a group for people who like to cook, and share recipes / photos of killer dinners they’ve made. A page doesn’t really suit this purpose, but a Group does.

I’d love to see Groups expanded so I could post to a group from the iPhone app.

Comment by Matt Smith — October 19, 2009 @ 11:18 pm

I totally agree that Pages and Groups should be merged. It’s hard enough maintaining one page–that’s why I chose not to do two. I wish Pages had the interactivity of Groups.

Comment by Joanne Glasspoole — October 20, 2009 @ 12:24 am

I am very disappointed in the change they have made to the groups section. I currently run a support group for abuse survivors and there are many members that have come to depend on the group for support. Now with the way the layout is, it has completely changed, it does not look like a support group at all. Just people shooting the shit, like on our regular personal pages. Also, I think you are all (including the people who run facebook) forgetting that there are groups that people want to belong to anon. so merging the pages and groups and posting newsfeeds for anything we post in the group, makes us not want to share with the group. My friends on my personal page do not need to read all of my thoughts in the group. This group is very personal and offers much support. It isn’t a stupid group like “I love ants” or whatever. It is of good use and is helping many people. Many of us do not want our friends reading our thoughts that we post to the group, but now when you post to the group, it goes in your personal page news feed for everyone in your friends to see. These friends are not connected to the group at all, and the group is a closed group so the content is
“supposed” to be private.

If anyone knows what I can do, or has any ideas of still having a support group but maybe not on facebook anymore, please let me know. I have always been a supporter of facebook and all it has to offer, but after what they have just done, it is going to negatively affect me and my members who are in dire need of the support. I don’t want to be a part of facebook anymore if that is the case.

Comment by jennifer — October 20, 2009 @ 12:35 am

thanks a lot facebook. you have totally screwed all of us that belong to groups. WTF. I need to figure out an alternative. As it stands, no one will want to share if everything gets posted to our newsfeeds…for people who aren’t in the group to… read. btw, the group is private so yea, this sucks.

Comment by jennifer — October 20, 2009 @ 12:54 am

I agree with joanne. Fan pages and groups should be merged because it’s hard to maintain both at the same time.

Comment by Facebook Application Developer — October 20, 2009 @ 2:46 am

One difference I have noticed, if you publish as an admin on a Page, it shows up as the Page as the post author. On a group, it still shows up as your personal account being the author

Comment by James Clark Embree — October 20, 2009 @ 2:50 am

all it does is drive up the ads exposure (right hand side) and improve facebook’s revenue.

the design looks confusing
you cant see the officers unless you scroll way way down

Comment by pathetic — October 20, 2009 @ 4:08 am

The new design sucks.Generally I dont like the design of pages.Wall Posts should not be the main feature of the page.They should leave the Groups like that or they should have come up with a better design that doesnt give high visibility to wall posts.Facebook has bad designers with no clue.They should take a tip or two from MySpace,at least on the designing front.

Comment by Derrick — October 20, 2009 @ 7:23 am

I stopped using them only because I always forgot about the discussions. Now that they’ll be in the news feed, I won;t forget about them and will probably go back to using groups again.

Comment by Mike — October 20, 2009 @ 9:02 am

Facebook should distinguish between pages and groups.

Comment by facebook applications developers — October 20, 2009 @ 10:09 am

I desperately want to see group chat capability on group pages. I am a new user, and quite frankly I am confused as t which is better for my group (very small). I have created both a group page and an app page. I like the feature on the app page that feeds me info on the page’s activity. The posts look better also, but we need more features and capablities that allow us to blog, twitter, or other social inovations.
Thanks for what you do, and for simple answers for people like me.
Butch Howard – Let’s Study Revelation!

Comment by Butch Howard — October 20, 2009 @ 10:41 am

Is there a way that a business owner who admins a group and runs a page could automatically push messages/events between the discussion/message areas in both spaces?

Comment by Bruce Christensen — October 20, 2009 @ 10:58 am

Is this actually working for people? I’m not seeing Group wall posts in my news feed. I do now see a “Groups” filter with some posts (not immediately updated) in the filter list at right (under the “More” tab), but not in the default feed?

Comment by JD — October 20, 2009 @ 11:41 am

i use groups much more than i use pages. i hate the new design for the groups because i can’t easily see every thing in the main page from one quick look. i do not usually care much about pages. now they look the same! if they keep that design, i would use facebook less than i used to.

Comment by group user — October 20, 2009 @ 11:45 am

I do not like the new group format. The purpose of the group was to have the option of anonymity; to engage a large or small group of people without geographic limitations, that had similar concerns or needs that chose to share these with trusted members IN PRIVATE. With facebook and twitter, why do we ned another public display?

I and my group are seriously disappointed. We will have to leave facebook and find a new venue that fits our needs. It is a especially disappointing because the facebook group page was working so beautifully. It really was perfect.

Comment by private group administrator — October 21, 2009 @ 12:39 am

my group front page has just been messed up with the new layout!

I can’t fix it because when I try to edit it, it gives me a tiny box to put it in and it doesn’t recognize a new line!!!

help!!!!!!!

Comment by Rick Lawson — October 21, 2009 @ 9:42 am

any one know how to deal with the new design of groups in facebook? how to make filter between the admin posts and the members ?

and how to get short address for facebook group ?

Comment by iSuha — October 21, 2009 @ 11:01 am

After weighing up the options, I chose a Group to utilise as the communication hub, of our group of friends. Privacy was necesary, and so was ease of communication and displaying information.

Now – that choice has been negated, by making Groups act as personal profile walls. We dont want our private discussions being published, we want to be able to post highlights, and be able to view latest discussions all on the same page, at the same time, without having to navigate multiple pages, and having posts truncated!!!

What a slap in the face!

I would say that it now looks like a 5yr old designed the Group page – but I dont want to insult any 5yr olds!!!

Come on FarceBook – get ur $#$%^ together!!!
At least give us the option to revert to the old format, if it suits us better!!!

Comment by TotallyAgainstNewDesign — October 22, 2009 @ 12:24 am

I hate the new layout of Groups. The whole idea of setting up a group was to give “Information” and to be different from a “Personal” page.

Now when you click on a group you go to an irritating “Wall” page, and have to do another click to get to the “Info” page . . . what a waste of time.

Also on the “Info” page, the information is now abbreviated and you have to click “View More” if you want to read the whole page. What the heck is the point of requiring yet another click? It’s only text for G*d’s sakes !!

Facebook messes up yet again. It worked ok before. Please put it back as it was.

Comment by Trevor George — October 23, 2009 @ 3:45 am

I’m writing a book about Facebook, and slightly annoyed that Facebook didn’t even have the courtesy to inform group administrators that changes would be coming. I was kind of surprised that all the photos that group members had carefully uploaded were taken off the group page!

Comment by Todd Kelsey — October 23, 2009 @ 7:16 pm

I hate the new design and so does a lot of my Facebook friends. Just leave well enough alone, my goodness.

Comment by cindy — October 24, 2009 @ 2:53 pm

ooooh sorry for what i say but ireally annoyed from this new system as simbly i cann’t deal with it

Comment by sarah — April 29, 2010 @ 6:52 pm

I think they should have an option to merge so that users can still use groups / pages for their own purposes. This helps with making Facebook more organized as some groups cannot be deleted due to the number of users who joined. It is impossible to delete the group unless all joiners leave the group. As a result, this may cause confusion.

Comment by Vera — November 13, 2010 @ 9:25 am

Facebook Groups Redesign Becomes Official

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Let your next job find you!

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Jobs of the Day

Digital Strategist

Digital/Social Media Manager - Entertainment

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See all jobs

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817532 Comments2009-10-19+20%3A46%3A20Nick+O%27Neill »