What are your thoughts on the new FB layout (with a shiny new "stalker feed")

I rolled my eyes when I learnt that I had to work out yet another new layout but, like with the last change, I’ll get used to it so no point in bitching.

I think people bitching about the free, useful service, that no one is obligated to use, is lame. Like that pic that’s floating around about it.

I am ever closer to dropping it. If it weren’t for you guys…..

Exactly what has changed? I don’t have a FB. My husband has one that I use. I saw some things had physically moved on the FB page, but what are the new features or changes?

I’m trying to figure out just what the changes are.
I don’t really see much difference. I usually appear offline, maybe that is why?
Just what am I supposed to be seeing that is different?

I didn’t understand the facebook interface in the first place, so this only makes it more confusing. Top stories? How do they decide that? Where is my stalker feed? I want to be stalked! Why does fb change things all the time? Does it do any good? Why doesn’t it go away and jump off a cliff? Does anyone get any benefit out of it? Anyone? Just let me share my photos in peace. That’s all. I don’t need nuthin else.

Stalker feed? Oh crap!

Isn’t the whole stalker thing a farce? I thought it was an app that didn’t work. Am I wrong?

EDIT: FB confused the f*ck out of me as it was

I never got to grips with the previous version.

I don’t care.

I think I’ll get used to it eventually. The only thing I really don’t like is the “top story” thing. It’s picking stories from people I hardly interact with and that have no comments – please tell me how that is a TOP story? If I could get rid of that part, it’d be fine.

I don’t care, although I’m just more concerned with people’s reactions. I’ve never seen so many people whine about a free service they don’t even have to use.

I don’t care because I’ve found out how to turn off the feed on the side of the screen and I vamped up my security. I also deleted a bunch of people so I can keep it more personal.

@KateTheGreat Nice! If you find out how to stop Top Story stuff, let me know.

@Allie I just turned my profile to UK English and then there were no “top stories.” I wonder if they will appear again.

@KateTheGreat I switched it over to UK, it disappeared, but, now it’s back.

Scratch that. The stalker feed continues. The top stories stuff is gone.

Will someone take a screenshot of what this stalker feed looks like? I haven’t seen it.

@Jude, what is a stalker feed?

@KateTheGreat Coming right up.

Here. Check the right hand corner. Click on the photo to make it bigger. It’s a live stalker feed, haha.

@Jude I most definitely don’t have that. You’ll probably just have to go into your account settings or privacy settings to fix that. I have never had that on my profile.

@Jude Thank you for that. I hadn’t a clue. Mine doesn’t have that feed, though…I just checked.

My husband’s FB doesn’t have that either.

I don’t have that either.
I did have a friend post this on her wall:

HOW TO GET YOUR FEED BACK TO NORMAL AGAIN. if you want your feed to go back to normal go to your account and go to notifications. At the top right is a box that says email frequency. Uncheck that box and your feed will show all the posts again. Then go to your home page and anything in the “Top Stories” click on the down arrow in the upper right and “unmark as top story” – now your newsfeed will be setup by timestamp rather than randomly picking “top stories!”

yay no fb for me :]

@KateTheGreat I heard about that UK version cheat, but I think they’re going to get rid of that loophole soon.
The “stalker feed” is basically a Twitter-like bar of updates about what your friends are doing elsewhere on Facebook. It’s like the Community Feed column here on Fluther.

Now I can’t find the “deactivate account” page on FB… ugh.

I honestly don’t care. I am not that invested in FB to worry about it and really, there are so many more important things going on in my life.

Do I care? No. Am I annoyed? Yes, to a point. I just wish they could leave stuff alone. I read that they did it so people will have more of an emotional connection to Facebook. I’ve never felt an emotional connection to Facebook and I don’t see that changing.

Ehh. It doesn’t matter.
I hear they hired Tom from Myspace to design a new layout. So it’s gonna be overdone soon, if that’s true.

I base my life on Facebook….

If Facebook reinvents itself and gets a new homepage…I reinvent my own image.

FACEBOOK IS MY LIFE!

Tom was my only friend on myspace.

What happened to my top 8?!

I truly don’t see the difference. I know that there is apparently some sort of apocalypse going on, but I don’t sign on enough to really see what all the hubbub is about. Facebook has always irritated me with their ever-changing security settings so that I constantly have to go messing around for an hour just to find my privacy settings, and then another 20 minutes to configure them the way I like.

Besides, do I care if my friend liked their friend’s friend’s photo? No. How unnecessary! If I’m that interested in every minute detail of their lives, chances are I’ve already lurked the hell out of their profile and maybe even googled their phone number.

I figure it can’t get much worse than it was, and it probably can’t improve enough to impress me.

It doesn’t matter terribly much to me. Besides, I have Google+. I got an invite a while back; I didn’t have to wait for it to go public.

I don’t understand or really see any difference. Everyone is still where I last saw them and only when I want to post something does it ask for extra stuff which I ignore. I can barely figure out the stuff that was already there. Do I care? Yeah, I want a simple feed to see what my friends post and simple quick ways to respond to them. I could care less about games or grouping my friends. If I had just one facebook for everyone though, I might be overwhelmed.

My sister-in-law just posted this. If this is the stalker thing everyone is concerned about, here is how to fix it:

Do me a favor: please hover over my name here, wait for the box to
load and then hover over the “Subscribe” link. Then uncheck the
“Comments and likes” choice. I would rather my comments on friends’
posts not be made public. Thanks** Then repost if you don’t want your
EVERY MOVE posted on the right for everyone to see

I just thought, while looking at the so-called “stalker” feed, “Hey, that asshole is active on FB and never comments on any of my stuff.”

Let the neuroticism begin!

@cockswain, that is funny.

@cockswain , or it could be someone like me, who uses her husbands account to see what my kid who isn’t talking to me right now is up to.

@Judi I’m guessing that would represent an extremely tiny percent of my facebook friends.

Okay, first of all “it’s a free service so shut up or leave” is the stupidest thing ever.

Facebook is not free. It costs an email address, all your personal information, and all your likes and interests. YOU are the product that Facebook is selling to advertisers.

Secondly, even if Facebook was free that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t complain about things that irk you. You have an obligation to tell someone if you don’t like something. How is anything ever supposed to get better if we just clam up and pretend like everything is okay?

Lastly, I don’t like the new changes.

Oh, and one last thing. Saying “you’ll get used to it” doesn’t mean anything. I could get used to driving my car with no windshield, does that mean it’s a good thing?

The list of what everyone else is doing on their Facebook page really just annoys the heck out of me. I honestly don’t care that Fred Flintstone wrote on Wilma’s wall and “liked” Barney Rubble’s quip about Sean Hannity. I am looking for a way to hide it, any suggestions are welcome.

@SuperMouse I wonder if NoScript would work…

Facebook is setting itself up as a portal (remember those?) and trying to control access to and sharing (and therefore marketing) on the Internet I don’t like monoliths and I don’t like constant streams of information about who is watching/reading/listening to what. I may be voting with my feet soon.

Finally! Instructions on how to change your FB back to the way it used to be:
To change the Layout BACK to ORIGINAL STATUS, you MUST get NAKED, stand on your dining room table and do the Macarena, all while singing ”I Will Survive”. After filming and sending it in a private message to me, then, and only then, will Mark Zuckerberg come down your chimney to tell you that your account will stay the same. Pass it on, it must be true because a friend of a friend of someone on Facebook I hardly know told me….....

Or if that doesn’t work you could try this:

According to Facebook’s explanation of the Subscribe feature, “To fine-tune how much you hear from each friend in your News Feed, hover your mouse over the Subscribed button on a friend’s profile. Decide how many updates you’d like to see in your News Feed from that friend as well as the type of updates you’d like to see.” If you uncheck “comments” or “likes” (or any of the other options) then you will not receive the respective updates in your Newsfeed from that friend. This is how the feature is supposed to work in theory,

@wilma Yes, but you have to rely on others to do so with your comments…that’s the part I don’t like…I have no control over who sees what I post/like. Not cool!

@martianspringtime When you find out how to find the privacy settings on THIS version of FB, let me know. I can’t find it this time around.

Well, I must say, Timeline is pretty cool.