Old Facebook is not coming back. Once you come to that realization you’ll be better off. So you don’t like it. A lot. You’re not really mad about a minor change to its interface. What you should be mad about is that Facebook is your ONLY option. And that’s pretty scary.

? Will Lion

“People will still wish to be part of families to stay connected with friends, to care for each other when they are unwell, and to grow old safely and in comfort. Technology, digital or otherwise, is the enabler for all of these things rather than the focus. Shifts in computing are therefore not at the forefront of people’s concerns. What does concern them is how technologies can support the things that matter to them in their daily lives – the things they value.” ~Being Human: Human – Computer Interaction in the Year 2020, Microsoft Research 2008

New Facebook

People are generally hesitant to change things when they work. Learning a new way to do something is work. Why should using a social networking site be anything but play? Some people are so bent on keeping the old format they’ve figured out a long workaround which ultimately may or may not work. I have not tried it because I, unlike many other people, like the new Facebook. I would mainly live in the old live feed area, but I gather that’s a side effect of using Twitter a lot and being used to real-time updates.

Old Facebook

Some people are just not satisfied with change and will do whatever they can to keep things the same, even if the process to keep things from changing is quite long- longer than learning how to do things a new way. The instructions are long even with making it the smallest size I can. I indented them so you can skim past them easier. From the Facebook group that tells you how to reclaim your old Facebook interface:

This is how to get your old Facebook page back:DONT FREAK OUT WHEN YOU FIND SO MANY STEPS.

You will only need part of them. some people may need a bit more. Do ALL the steps —- IN ORDER? If you skip steps or do them in a different order, It wont work.

Just follow these 6 steps
follow the order do not skip or do in different order.
#1 Join this Group
#2 Invite all your friends (ALL)
#3 Click the [Share +] button to the right (in the menu) ->
#4 When at Share (Post to profile), click the “Post” button
#5 Go to the old facebook page : click the link:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Old-FACEB00K-Page/70405283232
then click on “Become a Fan” just near the page title.
#6 Add the developer application to your profile:
go to the link below and on the page click add application
http://www.new.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2345053339
#6-b Click this link
http://apps.new.facebook.com/?fbnew_opt_out=1
and that’s it !!!
if you did step 6.5 and it didnt work please continue the following steps below
.
.If it works for you now but you notice its not working later simply repeat step 6.5
.
#6 Add this application:
http://www.new.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2345053339
It is facebook’s own developer application. Noone but facebook has created this. It is SAFE.
#7 Use FireFox. If you dont’ have it, dowload it here:
http://www.firefox.com
(This ONLY works with FireFox. FireFox is a browser much like Internet Explorer and one of the most used. I have now been told that this only works with FireFox 3.0 or above. Make sure you update to newest FireFox!)
#8 Download User Agent Switcher here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59
(This will allow you to make facebook think that you are using an old IE browser (version 5.5) on Windows 2000)
#9 Restart Firefox
#10 Download an update to User Agent Switcher here:
http://testingreflections.com/node/view/5125
This is the most complex part of this process, so I will take it step by step:
- Right Click on AgentStrings20070304.xml (16.51 KB)
- Choose “Save Link as”
- Click Save
- On the Firefox top menu, Click “Tools -> User Agent Switcher – > Options -> Options”
- Within Options click the “User Agents” tab on the left side
- Click on Import
- Choose the file that you downloaded
- Click “Open”
- You have now successfully installed and upgraded the User Agent Switcher
#11 Restart firefox
#12 On the Firefox top menu, Click: “Tools -> User Agent Switcher” and choose MSIE 5.5 (2000) from the list. You have to do this everytime you startup Firefox.
#13 Log in to Facebook like normal
#14 Click this link
http://apps.new.facebook.com/?fbnew_opt_out=1
(This will tell facebook that you want “out” of the new facebook)
——— – - – - – ———
TROUBLESHOOTING:
If you have gone through all these steps and still can’t get it to work, check these steps. If you can answer yes to all of them, it will work!:
#1 Are you using firefox
#2 Have you added the facebook developer application found here:
http://www.new.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2345053339
#3 Have you set the user agent switcher to MSIE 5.5 (2000)
#4 Have you clicked this link AFTER doing the above (not before):
http://apps.new.facebook.com/?fbnew_opt_out=1

No Facebook

So while most of you are complaining about the interface of Facebook, none of you are complaining about the monopoly that Facebook has on your social life. Or maybe you are, just not openly and apparently. When Friendster couldn’t handle their social network strains and constantly kept going down, you left for Myspace. When Myspace became overrun by 15 year olds that thought it was K3W|_ to mod their pages with obnoxious long loading epileptic seizure inducing graphics you jumped ship for a more streamlined Facebook that’s focused on actually social networking. Now what?

We’ve once come to a point where many of us are unsatisfied with our current social network yet there is no alternative to it. You’re not going to LinkedIn as that pretty much functions as a graveyard for resumes. Twitter? Some of you are already there but it’s a woefully inadequate real-time microblog at best. Organization and threaded conversations are it’s weakpoints, so until that’s addressed it won’t be supplanting Facebook anytime soon. So then what?

New New Facebook

Well, I don’t know. That’s the easy answer. There are some indicators as to what’s coming down the line. If Twitter gets their act together then they’ll easily be able to become a viable competitor. We have only just begun to see the first stages of Twitter expanding their service by them adding a house ad box, that can presumably be used for relevant paid company ads in the future. They have also changed the “older” link that takes you back pages to a “more” button that adds more tweets that are older to the bottom of your current ones on? your page. This “more” feature only hints at what Twitter can become by utilizing buttons that expand and organize conversations, relationships and personal information.

If not Twitter, then Friendfeed. A timely article on Facebook copying FriendFeed, who originally copied Twitter, brings to light the signal versus noise ratio of realtime updates in social networks. Facebook may have numbers on their side and Twitter may have buzz and ever-expanding numbers as well, but Friendfeed has implementation and positioning on it’s side.

While Facebook and Twitter duke it out to become the King of Social Media,
Friendfeed can sit idly by streaming to both sites, building its own network, adding more robust features, until it decides to take advantage of the situation. The time to take advantage of the situation would be now. Facebook is caught up in their crowdsourced TOS shenanigans and receiving tons of ire towards their new interface. Twitter is still out in the cold with no business model and with everyday that passes their users become more used to the fact that the service is free and free of any intrusive selling. If Facebook is any indication of how users react to changing well known interfaces midstream then Twitter will have a major problem on their hands when they finally do introduce their business model.

No Facebook

Right now, most people are truly upset because they can’t just jump ship from the new Facebook. There is nowhere to go. They’ve already left Friendster and Myspace. These two services failed for many reasons for many people. Going back is unthinkable at this point. The next service will come out of the blue, championed by early-adopters, students or niche consumers. It’s more than likely that our current services will be gobbled up by another, fade away or morph into another entity.

No one could have predicted real time microblogging. There were signs with the advent of instant messaging services and web logs, but we couldn’t have dreamed of the hybridization of the two. If you are interested in where our social networks will be in a little bit, don’t think of who can grow into what position, think of what cutting edge technologies and service are out there now and marry them to each other. Start thinking like that and you’ll be privvy to what some of us think about on a daily basis.

No Network

“Why would Facebook users leave? They?d have to have a reason, another better service that provides what they apparently feel is lost by the news stream reworking. Certainly not Twitter, the counter-metaphor that is allegedly causing the trouble. Then who? MySpace? Open Social? Windows Live?” ~Steve Gillmor, Please Stand By

That’s just it. There is no other network. Social networks have you hooked. There’s no turning back now. You can’t just stop using. You’ll just have to sit tight and wait until a better drug comes along.

It’s a truly dangerous situation when there’s no viable alternative to current vice. Now is the time for any smart businessman to invest in the future trends not in the present situations. When that happens we will all be better off.