Facebook Re-Tweaking its Design

Facebook is on its way to another facelift.

The Palo Alto social networking giant is quietly tweaking its design, so get ready for changes to your Facebook page, not to mention the inevitable debut of a new round of "I hate the new Facebook" pages.

From what's being leaked so far, it seems the changes will be fairly subtle, according to VentureBeat and The Atlantic. The News Feed is heading to the middle of the page, with more room for things like advertisements and the recently unveiled 'Happening Now" feature, where you can track real time updates. Any redesign -- whether they like it or not -- gives users a chance to look at their constantly changing stream with fresh eyes, and this new setup would give advertisers a quicker path to those eyeballs.

It's been about a year since Facebook did anything major to its page, and now may be the time to shake things up. Talk of a public filing, not to mention a fresh wave of competition from the likes of Google, could give Facebook's management reason to give the 750 million or so users something new to chew on.

As for public reaction, it's always all over the map when Facebook changes something.  With that many users, you're bound to get a wide variety of comments, good and bad.  If too many users think too much space is being allotted for ads, expect an outcry.  If more information, photographs, and updates can scroll by at any moment, expect many of those users to sit back and give change a chance.

After all, Facebook has changed before, and has heard the howling. So far, that many "likes" can't be all that far off the mark.

Scott welcomes change.  He’s on Twitter  @scottbudman

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