Upcoming Changes to User Profiles

We wanted to give you a heads up about some upcoming changes to the profile and how your application’s profile boxes will work. As time has gone on, we’ve received increased complaints from users that friends’ profiles are getting too cluttered, and that people are having trouble finding the information they are looking for on their friends’ profiles. On the other side, users are complaining that their own profiles are cluttered, and they have installed so many applications that it has become overwhelming to un-clutter it.

To benefit all users, therefore, we will soon be launching a “profile clean-up” tool. Similar to how your computer’s desktop will remind you to get rid of unused icons, this tool will give users the option to move extra profile boxes to an “extended portion” of their profile. Users can choose to move these boxes; we will recommend that they keep the Friends Box, Mini-Feed, Wall, Basic and Personal Information as well as the top 12 application boxes they have added. At the bottom of the profile will then be a link to “Show Extended Profile”. Any user will be able to expand the profile at any point in time to see all the applications a user has added to their profile.

We believe this change will allow users to interact with all of their applications in a more meaningful way. In addition to allowing the profile page to load faster, this means users will have an easy way to publicly acknowledge their favorite applications. We want platform applications to be a fully integrated piece of Facebook, which is why we don’t want users to feel that these applications have somehow infringed on the simplicity of their Facebook experience. We will continue to keep you posted on any changes we make to Facebook and to Platform.