Facebook Rolls Out Redesigned Profile Pages

alphadogg writes "The [Facebook Profile] changes include a clustered listing of biographical information under the user name at the top of the page, including such details as the person's job, hometown, relationship status, where they went to college, what languages they speak and birthdate. Beneath that will appear a set of the five most recent photos that a user allows to be posted at their profile page." The changes unsurprisingly are being met with mixed opinions ranging from rage to anger.

Re:slow news day?

[truthsearch]

60 Minutes even covered this last night. What blew my mind was the fact that they had 12 "engineers" working full time to build this new profile page. If the data and backend systems are logically designed then this redesign should be very easy. So either these "engineers" are low skilled or their systems are a mess.

Re:You'll get over it.

[ArsenneLupin]

and they got over Slashdot 2.0.

did they?

Re:Let the .....

[omnichad]

This time, they don't change the privacy - no new option added. You can't, for example, choose to disable showing the most recent 5 tagged pictures of you. No matter who your friends are or what prompts them to tag you in them.
 
I don't use Facebook often at all, but I just think it's stupid to put my profile information in the control of other people (my friends).

Browse friendships needs to be blockable.

[Posting=!Working]

Browse friendships on the new profile is just downright creepy. I know it's all visible info, but I can't think of a single non-creepy reason anyone would want to click and see every interaction between two other people.

If you were looking at the results for two people, and one of the people you were looking up walked up behind you, you'd try to hide it before they caught you. There really isn't a good explanation you could give them if they saw you doing it.

It appears to me a tool designed exclusively for stalkers, is there any other reason it exists? I'm really at a loss to figure out why this wasn't rejected the second it was suggested and the person suggesting it isn't avoided like the plague at the office.

I just love the "new" security features...

[denzacar]

Particularly the "Question only you know the answer to".
That has the range from "First grade teacher" through "Pet's name" all the way over to "Street you lived on when you were 8".

Is anyone in Facebook HQ aware that about 90% of their users use it to communicate or get back in touch with the very group of people who would know those answers - BECAUSE THEY ANSWERED THE SAME QUESTION THE SAME WAY?!
Hello! Your entire first grade class had the same teacher. Your friends know the name of your pets and the street you lived on. Your cousins sure as hell know the rest of the questions like mother's maiden name etc.

Why not just give everyone the default code of 0000 or 12345? It's about the same level of security.

Re:Die facebook, die

[DerekLyons]

Is facebook really technology? From what i can figure out, its a place where people spend 700 billion minutes a month playing farville and mafia wars.

Yep, as predictable as the sun rising - "I'm a slashdotter and I don't use Facebook, so I'll diss it to show how cool and how willingly ignorant I am". Seriously, it never occured to you that even though you don't like Rasberry Vanilla Fudge flavor that other people might? News flash - the Universe doesn't revolve around you, never has, never will.
 

I'd rather have all the facebook employees working on something significant, like i dunno, developing software for the space missions, or heck, even search engines. Search engines are awefully complicated - facebook is just a photo album with lots of cookies to track you.

Just this morning (and I'm still on my first cup of coffee) on Facebook I have;

• Seen some amazing photography by several photographers whose pages I follow.
• Started arranging going out to dinner with some high school classmates when we're all in town for our 30th reunion this spring.
• Discussed with my niece the value, or lack thereof, of internet 'awareness' memes (an anti child abuse campaign meme having gone viral on Facebook over the weekend).
• Confirmed with one real life friend I'll be attending his Christmas party, and confirmed with another our plans for Christmas Eve.
• Been informed by my local micro brewery that their holiday ale (whose kegging and bottling was delayed due to a storm caused power outage and damage to their machinery) will roll out this weekend.
• Helped a fellow geocacher solve puzzle and another fellow geocacher find some materials he needs for remodeling his house.
• And courtesy of a post by my sister about a toy she bought for her four year old took a nice trip down memory lane sharing our memories of that exact same toy with my mother, my sister, and my brothers.

And actually, that's a pretty typical day on Facebook for me.
 

At what point do we realize that people wasting time on such sites is as big a danger as say, drugs?
When's the war on facebook ?

Yes, it has security and privacy issue, anyone with sense knows that. But after a shedload of stories on Slashdot about Facebook, and many comments like yours, and many many comments like mine explaining how wrong you are, such ignorance as yours is pretty hard to understand. You may call staying connected with family, friends, etc... etc... 'wasting time', but a lot of people disagree with you. Given the number of tools developed to allow people to share and interact via the 'net (email, instant messaging, forums, blogs, social media...), I suspect you're in a distinct minority.