Here they come – More Facebook Changes … Oh joy… Can you sense my sarcasm?? I know, I know change is good, right? I am embracing it and accepting it. This is one of my steps to realizing that it is what it is, as by blogging, I am hoping to share some bit of knowledge that some you may not know. This may make the change easier for us all.
It seems that every few months Facebook developers in their infinite, 500 million users, wisdom decide to make changes. The newest version of their ‘upgrades to make it easier to navigate’ will roll out for ALL of us on August 23, 2010. I just have to say I am not very pleased that the gist of it is that we are losing space. What does Facebook plan to do with all the new space that the 500 pixels custom tabs and loss of boxes will create.
There are two parts to the new changes. The first one is the boxes. All box applications are being removed. Boxes will go away. For those of you that do not grasp what boxes do for us here are some examples:
- Hold cute hearts, puppy dogs, your favorite football/basketball etc team
- Create a place for your FLAIR
- Create a place for your favorite charity box
- On Fan pages – boxes hold your customized FBML – like social media icons, website graphic links and much more
- On Fan pages – Favorite boxes – Favorites of other fan pages
Ok these are just a few of the applications that boxes are used to help us personalize our walls for our personal profiles and for our Fan pages. These boxes down the left sidebar are going to ‘disappear’ on August 23rd, 2010 – Poof – Gone! I have yet to find one article, forum or post from Facebook or any other social media blog, writer, or company that explains how we are going to replace these valuable items.
Navigational tabs can be used for some of these items, but at this time, Facebook limits us to only 6 navigational tabs per profile or fan page at one time. 🙁
The second part of the changes are to Fan pages at Facebook. These are now going to be limited to only 520 pixels per customized page or as Facebook calls them – custom tabs. Translation here is – all Welcome Pages or Landing Pages that are created for your Fan page usually are in 760 pixels. Now they will be missing 1/3 of their page if you do not update the data to 520 pixels by August 23rd. At this time all Admins of pages can see the way their Welcome or Custom Tab/Page will look, but only Admins – the rest of the Facebook community will be able to view them at 520 pixels on August 23, 2010. This means much smaller pages for all Fan pages – urg. Why less space?
It also applies to anyone that has a Fan page with a Custom Tab for Testimonials or for a Newsletter Subscription box as most of those are created in 760 pixels, also and will require changes.
Needless to say, changes are coming – Are you ready? My staff is gearing up here! Hope this is information that may help some of you. Have a great day 🙂
Great article 🙂