When Facebook had its two BIG layout changes (Feeds and last summer’s profile tabs), most people pissed and moaned. People hate change. That is fine. Both of those updates made Facebook better and eventually people came around to love their Facebook experience and couldn’t imagine going back.

When Facebook changed again almost two weeks ago, I was hesitant to criticize. I actually advocated the change to people who complained to me. I wanted to like the change, and I had trust in Facebook with their two previous upgrades.

Not this time.

After having poked around all the new nuances and features, I’ll jump on board with the other 94% of Facebook users – The new Facebook sucks.

Why?

Perceiving Twitter as Such a Serious Threat is a Mistake

Facebook is developing a serious case of Twitter envy. It’s not hard to see how the popularity of Twitter is influencing Facebook’s attempts to remold itself and adapt to the web’s changing social network landscape.

Twitter has between 4 – 5 million users.

Facebook has ~500,000 new members sign up every effin day and ~250 million users.

You do the math.

So Zuckerburg, Inc got scared and went trying to buy Twitter. Failed. If you can’t buy em, copy em! Changing the Facebook model to reflect real-time internet is a great idea.

Really, it is. The internet is going real-time, in real-time, really. In fact, the previous Facebook had an awesome little tab on the home page called the ‘Live Feed.’ It showed in real-time, everything your friends did, that they allow you to see based on their privacy settings. And if you wanted to see recent photos uploaded, you hit Photos! Amazing right?

Now all they want to show you is current status updates a la Twitter. Well, they had this little tab called ‘Status Updates’ where you could do that! So why in the fork did they take away features? And guess what? The new status stream isn’t even real time! You have to refresh for updates (At least in Firefox and Chrome). Wasn’t that the whole point of the change?

The Actual Design Sucks

Often a new website means a cleaner design with better user functionality and more features. It usually harnesses new web tech and loads quicker. Just take a look at the redesign of Mint.com to know what I mean.

One of the best parts about Facebook’s originality  is that it took one look at Web 2.0 design trends and kicked them in the face. There were no round corners, no shadows and no glossy surfaces. Just clean cut design with great spacing between elements.

The width of the new site is 960px, but most pages can’t fill the space. The content in Application pages are 640px wide, Advertisements are 160px, but they are aligned to the far right of the page, this leaves a gap in between the two of 120px. Are bigger ads coming? Who cares if you’re smart and using Firefox with Ad Block.

There was nothing wrong with the previous design. It was almost flawless. If Facebook does go the way of larger advertising as their monetization strategy, they are just plain dumb and deserve to fail. Advertising alone killed MySpace and spurred Ad Blocking in every browser.

People Use Twitter to Follow Celebrities

Duh! Twitter is all about stalking people. Pretty plain and simple. Anyone that uses Twitter is either laughably overly self consumed or a celebrity with actual interest in their going-ons. So Facebook was wise to change the ‘Pages’ features and add a tab for Public Profiles. But that is all they should have changed! I could still have my feed with people I actually care about, and then click the public tab to view what Ashton Kutcher was doing today or what scripts Will Smith is considering or whatever.

People Use Facebook More Genuinely

Facebook is a real live account of our lives. We put everything up and actually follow people we see our daily lives. Never before on the internet has a site provided so much trust that people give up so much information about their daily lives. With access to such a powerful database, it really is amazing they remain unprofitable.

Zuckerberg, Inc. needs to start worrying more about a profitability long-term strategy rather than a fad startup with no lasting appeal.

And alienating users while a competitor emerges is also probably not a good idea.

EDIT:

Facebook has just posted a lengthy letter to its users on its official blog detailing some of the changes we’ll soon be seeing on the site’s recently-redesigned homepage.