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So far 1.7 million Facebook users have signed a petition to show their displeasure with the site’s new layout.  Facebook says the redesign, which is the second one in 6 months, was done to help them compete with other popular social networking sites like Twitter.  The Newsfeed, Live Feed, Photos, and Status Update feeds are gone, replaced with a single page combining them all.  Also gone is the status update tool, which was replaced with Publisher, a tool that allows users to post Tweet like entries that immediately show up on their page and their friends’.  Despite the huge number of irate users, Facebook has chosen to ignore the strongly negative reaction to the new design.

I’m a heavy Facebook user and I will admit I preferred the old design.  For me, there are two very annoying features with the new version.  The first is that the feed brings too much information at times.  For example if a friend sends a gift or an app invite to 100 of their friends, you get 100 notifications, one for each friend they sent it too.  Very annoying.

The second issue, which I think is an inexcusable oversight by Facebook, is that although the new feed was promised as being real-time, just like Twitter, it is far from it.  You have to manually refresh the feed to get any new info on it!  The Live Feed on the old design truly was live and I miss it.  Facebook is a valuable tool and a lot of fun but if they don’t start listening to their users they will eventually live to regret it.

Read [PCWorld]