OK, Facebook...

(from FB)

Now that I'm over the utter shock of the Facebook makeover, the only thing I actually hate about it is the news feed itself. You can get rid of the annoying ticker and chat list on the right sidebar with any of several browser extensions (like Better Facebook, which also does tons of other wonderful things to make your FB life easier), so eh.

(from FB and, evidently, memegenerator.net)

The "top stories" vs. "most recent" news feed format, however, is ridiculous and almost useless, because it is incomplete. I don't know how it benefits Facebook to not show all the updates you've asked for, in reverse chronological order, like before. Now that they let you define how many updates you want to see from each individual friend, the news feed should be a really pleasant experience, but then they had to throw us "top stories" and a few recent posts instead.

So now if you want to see all your friends' updates, you have no choice but to go to their individual profile pages. I don't mind doing that for a few people, but there's obviously not enough time in a day to click through everyone. So I just won't see most of their posts. Totally unsocial.

I do think the new Timeline profile pages will be really cool. It's more customizable than the current profile page, allowing a large photo of your choice to be the header image. Seems you can choose featured photo albums and that sort of thing. It's a more aesthetically-pleasing, more personalized page.

The social apps are going to be a privacy nightmare, but I think if you pick and choose, and set your settings appropriately, it could also be really interesting. Like, it looks as if you can have Netflix show the most recent films you've watched. Pretty neat, unless you watched something questionable in subject matter (and/or personal taste). Then prepare for endless harassment.

If I use any of the social apps, I would make sure I'm not doing or saying anything on those sites that I don't want everyone on my friend list to know about. Mark Z hopes you'll forget people are watching... I don't forget it. So we'll see. I may participate in only a limited capacity in the social apps, at least in the beginning.

I have come a long way with my overly cautious internet privacy concerns, though. For example, originally I didn't allow anyone to tag me in Places, but now I do.

*bows*

Heck, I don't even have to approve it before it posts to my wall. So go ahead and fake-tag me at your local swingers club. Just remember... paybacks are hell. :)

And now we are off to College Station to watch the Fightin' Texas Aggies BTHO OSU!