Brace for impact!

More changes are coming to Facebook, and we all know how that went down last time.



If there ever was a virtual riot, that was it.

Apparently, the new layout and technical changes are being made to better compete with Twitter in terms of real-time status updates, as this article will tell you.

"The new-look home page, which will start rolling out on March 11, will refresh the status updates of friends and family as they happen, rather than every 10 to 15 minutes, as is currently the case.

It will make Facebook more like the Twitter microblogging service, which allows users to communicate with one another in real time in messages of 140 characters or less."

Also, the 5000-friend limit is being removed, which I know was a *real* problem for me. The article suggest that celebrities and other public figures who are looking to connect with fans and supporters may benefit from this new development, although all I've heard about celebrities who use facebook are the hackers who post their private messages/pictures.

However, the fact that Facebook is more prominently displaying that changes are coming in a "Home" page announcement is probably a lesson well-learned from last time. Indeed, the changes don't occur until March 11th, which may leave nay-sayers enough time to get used to the idea, and spare us all from developing "Protest against the new facebook!" facebook groups (which seemed rather contradictory to me).

It'll be interesting to see what the response is, and if Facebook takes any other measures to keep the peace amongst its users.