LEAKED: Details of the Facebook Home Page Redesign [Screenshots]
A few weeks ago, we caught wind that Facebook was testing a new homepage design. Screenshots revealed a few interesting changes, such as a decrease in size for the Facebook Publisher box and a new, Friendfeed-like “Top News” filter for the news feed.
Yet that’s all of the details we could discern from the screenshots. We didn’t know when it would launch, the philosophy behind the changes, or its impact on advertising. But now, thanks to one of our readers, we have an exclusive inside look into the new home page, engagement ads, and more. Below, we provide a detailed explanation of the new Facebook home page, as well as the document sent to brand advertisers.
Changes to the Home Page
In this four page document, Facebook outlines the benefits of the redesign to advertisers who will clearly be affected. First, Facebook states its goal for the new homepage: “simplifying the user experience on the home page by introducing Top News and Recent Activity streams.”
Here’s Facebook’s full explanation:
“Facebook is simplifying the user experience on the home page by introducing Top News and Recent Activity streams. Now, when users log on to Facebook for the first time in a while, they will see the most important stories that they missed while they were away. From there, users can navigate to the real-time stream and toggle between both views throughout their sessions. In addition to making it easier for users to view content that is most relevant to them, this change also speeds up the time it takes for the home page to load and makes birthday reminders more prominent.
Ultimately, Facebook believes these changes will increase engagement on the home page by surfacing more relevant stories to users.”
Summary: The new home page emphasizes on toggling between views and feeds in order to personalize the experience. It also decreases Facebook’s load time, which will likely have a major impact on time on site and bandwidth costs.
News Feed Changes
Facebook then details the changes to the News Feed. There are two different ways to view it: the summary view (Top News) and the real-time view (Recent Activity). The first filter is a prominent feature of FriendFeed (
) and likely the FriendFeed team had something to do with building Top News. It also looks like Facebook is removing the Highlights section on the right hand sidebar of the home page in favor of the Top News filter.
Oh, there is one more doozy: Facebook is bringing back a lot of new information to the News Feed. From Facebook’s document:
“Facebook has also put information back into the stream that people have asked for, including photo tags, friend acceptances, relationships, Event RSVPs and group memberships. In addition, birthdays are now viewable above the fold.”
We’ve heard complaints about losing these news feed items from the last redesign, so it’s a plus that the world’s largest social network is bringing them back.
Engagement Ads and Fan Pages
Facebook believes the upcoming changes are a boon for brand advertisers. The first piece of news: fanning, RSVPs for events, and virtual gifts will reappear in the social stream organically, which makes it easier for brands to expand their reach across Facebook. The right column of the homepage is also stripped down, which will make ads on the home page more prominent.
Modern Warfare 2 shock: No servers or mods for PC version!
Call of Duty community manager Rob Bowling, also known as ‘fourzerotwo’, has confirmed in a podcast that the PC version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will not support user-created mods. Worse, it will not support dedicated servers. PC gamers will have to suffer peer-to-peer connections, just like their console-owning cousins.
Mr. Bowling could offer no defence for this move, and simply stated that: “The team’s focusing on having it very equal on every platform” and “We’re doing a lot of work on the back end.”
Previous PC versions of CoD have supported dedicated servers. Their absence will apparently make the game “much more accessible to the PC community as a whole.”
You can listen to the podcast here; skip forward to around the 1:41 mark for the awful truth…
Check out our follow up story here, where Dice throws its two cents into the debate, as well as details about how you can have your say.
Lucidity Gameplay
Just Beautiful
Modern Warfare 2 Infamy Trailer
can u wait?
Aion Lvl 10 “Deathcat” my Ranger Daeva I got Wings!!
Just a quick video of Aion to show what happen when you get to lvl 10
Character name: Deathcat
Server: [ENG] KAHRUN
I recorded with fraps and the PC specs are:
¤ Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8200
¤ XFX Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3
¤ Windows 7 RC1 x64
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/pablosu
Creating Bootable Vista / Windows 7 USB Flash Drive
It surprised me to find that there are very few dead-simple guides to creating a bootable USB thumb/pen/flash drive for a Vista and/or Windows 7 installation. I cobbled together the following from VistaPCGuy and another source I don’t remember right now.
This will walk through the steps to create a bootable USB flash drive for the purpose of installing a Vista or Windows 7 OS. These instructions assume that you have a computer with Windows Vista installed on it.
Required:
- USB Flash Drive (4GB+)
- Microsoft OS Disk (Vista / Windows 7)
- A computer running Vista / Windows 7
Step 1: Format the Drive
The steps here are to use the command line to format the disk properly using the diskpart utility. [Be warned: this will erase everything on your drive. Be careful.]
- Plug in your USB Flash Drive
- Open a command prompt as administrator (Right click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and select “Run as administrator”
- Find the drive number of your USB Drive by typing the following into the Command Prompt window:
diskpart
list disk
The number of your USB drive will listed. You’ll need this for the next step. I’ll assume that the USB flash drive is disk 1. - Format the drive by typing the next instructions into the same window. Replace the number “1” with the number of your disk below.
select disk 1
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=NTFS
assign
exit
When that is done you’ll have a formatted USB flash drive ready to be made bootable.
Step 2: Make the Drive Bootable
Next we’ll use the bootsect utility that comes on the Vista or Windows 7 disk to make the flash drive bootable. In the same command window that you were using in Step 1:
- Insert your Windows Vista / 7 DVD into your drive.
- Change directory to the DVD’s boot directory where bootsect lives:
d:
cd d:\boot - Use bootsect to set the USB as a bootable NTFS drive prepared for a Vista/7 image. I’m assuming that your USB flash drive has been labeled disk G:\ by the computer:
bootsect /nt60 g: - You can now close the command prompt window, we’re done here.
Step 3: Copy the installation DVD to the USB drive
The easiest way is to use Windows explorer to copy all of the files on your DVD on to the formatted flash drive. After you’ve copied all of the files the disk you are ready to go.
Step 4: Set your BIOS to boot from USB
This is where you’re on your own since every computer is different. Most BIOS’s allow you to hit a key at boot and select a boot option.
I used these instructions to get my new Dell Mini 9 laptop loaded with Windows 7 (the PDC bits). HTH.
from: http://kmwoley.com/blog/?p=345
Jay Spears: SMAK DEM CHRISTIANS DOWN
Jay Spears: SMAK DEM CHRISTIANS DOWN
Rockband The Beatles Trailer BEST BUY DEMO! HD
Rockband The Beatles Trailer BEST BUY DEMO! HD
