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Can You Safely Revert to the 'Old' Facebook?

james

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Do you hate the new Facebook?

You're not alone, but is there a safe way to roll back the latest update and use the old Facebook? And on a site with more than 175 million users, do protests from less than a million of those users really warrant any action?

Facebook started rolling out revamped homepages earlier this month. Homepage tabs were cut in favor of combined status updates and news feed activities, while "highlights" from friends' profiles were put in a separate section on the right-hand side.

Some said the changes made Facebook look more like Twitter, a notion that Facebook denied.

But is there a way back to the promise land of "old" Facebook? Amidst the grumpy status updates from angry Facebook users, blogs reports surfaced this week that with a few clicks of your mouse, new Facebook would be gone forever.

An allfacebook.com post, for example, pointed to a Facebook group called "I WILL SHOW YOU HOW TO GET THE OLD FACEBOOK BACK!" The group provided a detailed work-around that would allegedly restore the old Facebook template.

Some of the comments, however, were from 2008, suggesting that the group was actually created for the last Facebook revamp in summer 2008. Other more recent posts said they were too lazy to go through all the steps, while others wondered if the solution was simply malicious software.


Though it was available earlier this morning, it appears that that group has since been deleted. Most of the other "Give us back old Facebook"-type groups only contain petitions or requests for boycotts rather than technological solutions.

Facebook did not respond to questions about whether there was a safe way to restore the old profiles, or whether users were any more outraged over this revamp than the last.

Reports surfaced yesterday that 94 percent of Facebook users were unhappy with the change. The data stemmed from a poll app created by a Facebook user that asked users to rate the changes via thumbs up or thumbs down. As of 4 P.M. Eastern time, the thumbs-down corner had 981,142 votes, while the thumbs up category had 60,363 votes.

That may be 94 percent of users who voted, but among the 175 million total Facebook users, are these people activists for the Internet age or just whiny users who can't handle change?


And what are people so worked up about? The most cited problem appears to be the revamped news feed, which users say is too confusing and omits valuable gossip.

"I miss being able to get more than status updates on the news feed," Lisa wrote.

"I liked the old home page layout. It was easier to tell the difference between types of posts. Everything was listed by time and easy to tell the difference between types (in case I wanted to skim over status updates and just read wall posts, notes, and videos)," wrote an anonymous user.

"Mixed reaction here, I like how it is easy to post web pages and easier to control some of your friends content," Mike wrote. "The bad is the stupid applications take up too much of the newsfeed."

Dissention in the ranks is nothing new when it comes to Facebook overhauls. The social networking site revamped the site last summer, introducing tabbed profiles, streamlining what people saw on the newsfeed, and integrating Wall posts, status updates, and any other activity into a single stream on peoples' pages.

For that update, Facebook did a phased transition- allowing users to retain their old profiles until September. But people were just as annoyed with the changes then as they are now, suggesting that regardless of what Facebook does, there will also be those who hate it and feel the need to join a group and vocalize their anger.

Last time, however, users did not have the option of putting up the changes to a vote. Last month, Facebook introduced its new "democratic" process, which lets users vote on Facebook changes that have a lot of feedback from users.

If a particular topic garners more than 7,000 user comments, users will be given the opportunity to vote on the issue. A vote will be binding if more than 30 percent of all active registered users vote.

No word on whether the redesign will go up for a vote. The issue could likely gather at least 7,000 user comments, but can it get 30 percent--or 52.5 million--of its users to vote on it? Stay tuned.

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