According to multiple reports on the web yesterday, Facebook is making yet another change to its interface. They officially have no comment to the published reports, but the plan is to scrap the “Become a Fan” link and replace it with “I like” when you are joining a fan page of a brand. Facebook is known for constantly tweaking its interface in an effort to keep current with the new media landscape
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A few things to note here.
Is Facebook moving at such a pace that will turn off users? So far, despite the complaints, Facebook continues to draw in traffic and users at a Google-like rate. For now, its a simple annoyance that users have grown accustomed to. Secondly, doesn’t Facebook already have the “I like” feature tied into another concept? Right now, if you like a comment or a status update, you can click the “I like” button. So what has been reserved for current social news will now be tied into a support of brand as well. I doubt this will be earth shattering change for facebook and its users, but its yet another tweak that makes you scratch your head as to why it is being implemented in the first place. Especially since the “Become a Fan” phrase has become branded to a certain extent.
If this new change isn’t enough for you, there is yet another one coming down the pipe. Facebook is reported to be integrating a location based feature into the status updates of users sometime in April. This is looked at by some as a threat to the up and coming foursquare, who is rapidly becoming the new social media golden child. Although it is believed that Facebook has been planning this integration for awhile now, they wanted to release it when the market was ready to embrace location based services.
