Facebook launched more than a new iPhone app this evening – they also have a new home page (the page you see when you aren’t logged in) and a new tagline. Gone is all the descriptive language suggesting you sign up to “Keep up with friends and family,” “Share photos and videos,” “Control privacy online,” and “Reconnect with old classmates.” Now Facebook has a simple message to entice you to sign up: “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.”
They’ve also removed the language around being a social utility, although I suspect we haven’t heard the last of it. The old tagline was “Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you” and was used by Facebook customer service reps to claim Facebook wasn’t a social network and that people should use it primarily to connect with offline friends:
This means that we expect accounts to reflect mainly “real-world” contacts (i.e. your family, schoolmates, co-workers, etc.), rather than mainly “internet-only” contacts. As stated on our home page, Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you, not a “social networking site”. It is meant to help reinforce pre-existing social connections, not build large groups of new ones.
Now Facebook says you can use it to connect with “people in your life,” which presumably includes online friends as well.
I bet the company spent countless hours debating that new tagline and whether it should say “people in your life” or “people around you.” This is the time in a startups growth period when most of the real entrepreneurial types either walk away or hide under their desk until they’re fully vested. Meetings like that just aren’t tolerable.
The old version is below.
What a crappy new homepage. Looks cheap with a map and floating heads. I think they need to stop making silly design changes and figure out a way to make money.
oh come on. it’s fine. and users never see it anyway.
so true
Jack is just another fb hater, who keeps chanting fb cant make money, instead of adding a new friend in fb for his own gud.
Now that the economy is undergoing major adjustments, shouldn’t we focus on how Facebook makes money? They are 5 years into this thing and have no business model. I mean, ad impressions are fine, but their is no visibility as to what type of business this social experiment will yield? Are we in for a bubble in the web sector? With the slowing economy, shouldn’t the web sector now place focus on revenue and not fluffy design changes, especially a major player like Facebook?
tinycrunch beat you to the punch on this story.
I think it looks vastly better than the old one, which looks more like a login to a generic web service….. which I guess was appropriate
Datamining is the new plastic…
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I think the new one will drive new registrations. It kind makes me want to register eventhough I’ve already got an account.
Which makes money.
Can’t see the new homepage on my computer… any clue why?
Log out.
I’m logged out, still seeing the old page though
What’s TechCrunch tagline by the way?
It’s ‘We used to provide you good tech news, now we just want to know celebrities’
You don’t see it in the map, don’t you?
No, I see the page with the map up there. Thanks.
I’m talking about going onto the Facebook website and not seeing any difference with yesterday. Cache problem perhaps?
It’s fine. And the term “social utility” was silly and it’s good that they got rid of it.
from what i understand facebook was designed for people that you actually know and interact with in real life. now we have a picture of the world and users around the globe interlinked. appears fb has expanded its horizons. i think we can safely call this fb innovation. personally i never liked the feel of the site, color scheme. layout, or tagline.
appears fb has lost its”niche.” they are no longer a “local conservative” site. they are now a “global libertarian” website. fb has ended social slavery.
500 million investment… they dont need to make money, they already got it.
in the future all social network users will get smart and share a dividend from the social site and search engine they use, its called inevitable evolution!
NetworkLocator.com
Michael I think you could look into see if their ad revenue has increased with the new layout. I find that I am clicking on ads WAY more now, and I don’t normally seek out ads.
I’m curious how they knew what would determine such good ad placement…
You log in, you log out, and there you go. Cache problem.
Oh! you actually have to go to http://www.new.facebook.com to see the new homepage. Wow, THAT’s intuitive!
looks better now. hehe
Totally agree with the Mike on the bit where this its meetings lasting hours to discuss the new tagline.
From the fast pase of a startup to the drudgery of having to triple analyse every move and have meetings about meetings with consultants and PR experts with everyone wanting their view heard.
Sod that, facebook lets me chat to my mates and see what theyre upto…it works great – i dont care what the strap line is…it could be ‘use this and you suck ass’, i’d still use it.
no me gusta
I wake up and this is the big morning news?
Slow news day…
So, a website changed it’s tagline, wow, thanks for letting me know Michael!
Grow up Fabricio.
I love how Mike doesn’t just “bet” that they debated the tagline for hours, but briefly pontificates on how something he completely made up reflects startup culture, and makes the Eeyore-like comment that “meetings like that just aren’t tolerable” – to repeat, this is a meeting that happened entirely in his own head.
way better than the old one.
The new homepage is quite nice. It shows Facebook’s global intentions. Nice move – and overall still the best looking social networking site.
You guys should check this out. There’s an English-Pirate version of Facebook?!? Funny
It’s HERE
This is just a shitty blog post about the same non-news. Move along people.
The tagline, translated from swedish is as follows…
“Facebook gives you the opportunity to share you experiences with others and make the world a more open place.”
I can tell you that the new tagline in the US is way better than the new one in Germany. I think they should ASAP make another meeting to fix that;-) Translated it’s like the following: “Facebook makes it possible to share content and opens and connects your world”.
Your title suggests that there’s a marketing-related problem with the website. However, from your words I can only discern criticism about the tagline—a few words that can be interpreted a 1000-way.
One would assume they’ve bucket-tested the Home Page, got better results, and made the switch.
Personally I think it appears to be an improvement. Unfortunately, everyone in the World has an opinion – hence bucket test to get the widest results you can and go with it.
SUGGESTED TAGLINE:
“Facebook enables you find those friends that you haven’t seen in years, and probably didn’t want to see ever again, so you can be superficially updated about what they do”
heh, how about
“Facebook – even your mom and her friends are on it now.”
I am so happy that FB is doing this. It makes my job so much easier. I figure 20-40 million will jump at a newer and cooler social network in the U.S when they realize FB is but a simple fad. FB is doomed. Well unless you think a US$1.85 billion valuation is a failure. If they do not sell now they are toast.
As the master I should know such things
I like it … but they need to move the links at the bottom up to where the grey finishes. Makes the page look really “disproportionate”. Sort of like its “cut off and finished” and then its like “oh F*$k, we forgot to add the links in”
It has 11 external CSS images and 3 external stylesheets. Really need to speed things up …..
My 2 cents
This is all part of facebook’s new positioning as the social network of the internet.. (rather than the walled garden it is today). It strikes me they have changed their overall strategy since they launched the application addons a while ago – that is the reason for the change to the interface and all these changes.
I already get too many marketing money making messages on facebook it’s ridiculous!
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On the graphic… I don’t have real life connections with people all over the world. They must be moving slightly away from the “real life” stigma, or someone didn’t really think about what that image meant.
hai
Hi
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hi , welcome
“On the graphic… I don’t have real life connections with people all over the world. They must be moving slightly away from the “real life” stigma, or someone didn’t really think about what that image meant.”
Dude did they have that before with just a simple blue and white logo on a home page with pretty much nothing?
Facebook – your site is way too slow.
Faraway tons of copycats.
Definitely agree with the analysis on too many useless meetings arguing over a couple words. I’ve been in quite a few and wasted both the company’s resources and my own. We always need a gate keeper to move things on.
Is it me, or did anyone else notice that two floating heads in Africa (Egypt) and South America (Chile) both only have 1 friend while all the others have 2.
Is facebook trying to say Egyptian/Chilean people have less friends than the rest of the world?
Some of those guys only have one friend lol
I like the new homepage.
http://gatesand...s.blogspot.com/
i havent had a facebook account in three years. i dont get the hype.
Não sei por que vocês perdem tempo discutido sobre o novo tagline do Facebook
I’m not getting the new splash page? It’s still the same old same old.
Slow news day Mike? I feel your pain. I hate it when I need to resort to reading minds.
The old design looked a bit antiquated. The new version has a much more modern look to match the site. However, Facebook needs to tell more about what the service does. Everyone doesn”t know about Facebook, and I think they’re taking that for granted. Perhaps they should include a rotating slideshow showcasing features of Facebook with captions?
i agree with u ur right but i do think they need to bring the old fb back like not that meany ppl like the new fb its kinda crapy
its so stupid like i always use facebook and now its kinda much harder to do stuff because they changed things like i cant find half of my friends and then my profile is messed up like mad so i am cutting out fb theres no point
no no no no ,,,,,,,,, i hate new face book
Facebook is absurd, why are they even trying to make a new impression of it’s “social utility”, It shows nothing but showing more on a better but not required homepage rather than making better use and facilitate it’s interface with better security, options and features. They can’t do that, they can’t do anything. Facebook is good for it’s principle of it’s service, but as long as they jump for the largest potential audience possible they’ll take as many risks as it may require. That’s business, Facebook changed it’s whole model from “people around you” to “in your life” to make sure that people use it for clients and virtual friends. It’s just natural, but Facebook is stupid for focusing on the less important things. For a multi-million dollar business venture, I am very disappointed in them.
I LIKE IT.IT IS OKAY.
no comment;)
you should keep going, changing, improvoing, etc and one of these days you will hit the jack pot/
Heck, the fact tht I am on it right now and I am nearly 8o yrs old ought to tell youe something.
Pat McMartin.
the facbook is toooooooooooo slow .. i’ve been 3 days couldn’t get n ..
what’s wrong
i hve been 3 dayz couldnot get login wtz da pb?
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