New Facebook Profiles Unveiled (PICTURES): See The Redesign

Facebook is getting a facelift.

The social network is announcing a new look for users' Facebook profiles, a change that is especially significant given how central these profiles are to the Facebook experience.

As Facebook explained in a blog post, the new design aims to make it easier to quickly glean key information about a person from their profile and tries to "[make] your entire profile a more compelling visual experience" by featuring photos and images more heavily than before.

Personal information, such as your job, school, location, and hometown, and birthdate, along with recently tagged photos will now appear at the top of your profile.

"The profile begins with a quick overview of basic information such as where you're from, where you went to school, and where you work--the kinds of conversation starters you share with people you've just met or exchange with old friends as you get reacquainted," Facebook explained in a blog.

Additional changes include revamped photos and Friends pages, as well as the ability to feature certain groups friends (or "highlight meaningful relationships") on your profile. (Learn more about all the changes here). Rearrangeable icons, rather than text, will now be used to represent interests and experiences, so your alma mater will appear as a logo, rather than as text only, and Facebook will include an album cover to represent your favorite artist, book, or movie.

Facebook is also making a push to encourage users to share more about themselves with the addition of two new categories of interests: Philosophy--which includes political views, religion, favorite quotations, and inspirational figures--and sports. The new profile also allows users to fill in additional information about their education and work experience, such as classes they've taken or projects with which they've been involved. In what appears an effort to collect more personal information on Facebook profiles, the redesign now highlights more explicitly categories a user has not filled in ("Share Your Interests," the site suggests next to the Arts and Entertainment field), whereas before items left blank were simply omitted.

As the screenshots below show, the new design also places a greater emphasis on advertisements, bringing them closer to user-generated content.

Facebook is beginning to roll out the new look and all users should receive the upgrade by early 2011 (Alternately, you can elect to upgrade here).

See screenshots of the new Facebook profile below.
LOOK:
Profile Page:

Education and Work:

Arts & Entertainment:

New Ads vs Old Ads:

WATCH:

Comments

[ClaraJames]

02:41 AM on 01/28/2011

I personally like the previous profile box and I don't like this new facebook profile. I think simplicity is key.

http://www.inkatechnology.co.uk/facebook-application-developers.php

[lasjazzman]

04:09 AM on 12/19/2010

I will not willingly switch over to the new profile because it has apparently eliminated most of what I like about Facebook to begin with - which is access to my own and my friends' collected links. I like having access to those quickly without having to slog through thousands of less important posts and comments to find them - and I think most of my friends feel the same way. The links and likes are the most efficient and fun way to find out what interests people from day to day - which is what I thought Facebook was trying to facilitate in the first place! I would hope that Facebook is smart enough to realize that they better offer an option to revert to the previous format or they may spend most of their time fielding complaints as well as lose many members.

[CuriousReadBlog]

11:09 AM on 01/17/2011

If anyone needs help Check out http://www.facebookcustompictures.com/

[Thanh Dinh Ba]

06:41 PM on 12/17/2010

Make awesome profile collage http://apps.facebook.com/profile-collage/

[adluria]

09:59 PM on 12/13/2010

Why is HuffPost 'reporting' this change so uncritically? It is so blatantly an effort by FB to make users' personal information uniform, standard, and more easily mined by advertisers who want to customize their ads. Why else would it be that users can't choose the type of information that appears on their profile? You can't, for instance, list a blog or website or a favorite quote. I am seriously irritated by this change and my inability to make decisions about the information that appears on my profile page.

There's a Facebook page called "The New Profile is a marketing scheme." If you hate the new profile, please "like" this page!

[superjoe]

11:23 PM on 01/10/2011

You can still list a blog, you can still list a website, and you can still list your favorite quotes. In the end, facebook is a free site for users, and yes, they want to make money. The design just slightly increased the size of the ads on the right. Not a big deal.

[Dennison Uy]

04:25 AM on 12/08/2010

Who made this decision??? The new layout no longer displays the latest status, which is one of the things I really liked about Facebook. Compared to this garbage the old one was much better. Check it out at http://bit.ly/gDUTNX ... FAIL!

[Jim Accardi]

12:18 AM on 12/08/2010

wow it looks exactly as it does now

[FLNewsJunkie]

09:11 PM on 12/07/2010

Yeah, once everyone's all good with the format they go and change it....again....

[onegandolf1]

03:27 PM on 12/07/2010

So far, in my opinion, it sucks. more on this later.

[PresidentRobertBooth]

11:33 AM on 12/07/2010

Facebook (and Twitter) is now the bane of existence for many websites, including Huffington Post.
 
 
It's bad enough that HuffPo crams as much as possible onto each page, thus slowing loading, but every page now comes complete with links and updates to Facebook and Twitter, which slows things down even more.
 
When you add HuffPo's bizarre obsession with every article being "rated" or "liked/disliked" it creates a cyber cluster****
 
Not sure why exactly HuffPo is obsessed with Facebook. Nothing newsworthy has ever appeared on that site.

[Danek Greori]

07:18 AM on 12/07/2010

They went from 2 columns to 3 columns... is this really a big deal someone?

[noob1]

06:37 AM on 12/07/2010

Was there an old one? Who cares.

[mainstreethost]

12:50 AM on 12/07/2010

He is just to wrapped up with all the attention and feels he has to do something to account for all the money he is raking in. If it's not broke...don't fix it!
mainstreethost

[GundamJack]

10:39 PM on 12/06/2010

It is really hard to make news friends on facebook and it get even hard to find your old high school friend on facebook because the facebook search engine to find old friends from high really sucks and someone need to be fired for replacing the old facebook search engine. I used facebook and I saw some of the new layout of facebook. I have problem using the facebook search engine and I really do missed the old facebook search engine.

[Ali Rza]

07:14 PM on 12/06/2010

what the obsession with changing everything every other month? sooner or later facebook will become like myspace and no one will use it.

[KeithClark]

06:23 PM on 12/06/2010

Yeah I just converted over to it I love it, it takes the hassle out of having the Facebook stalk because all of the info is basically right there in your face!