• VentureBeat et al., Friday, February 5, 2010 12:09 PM

Let the backlash begin! Facebook late Thursday began rolling out a new site redesign, which is sure to rile its most vocal members.

"Unlike previous overhauls that focused on visual appeal, the new Facebook changes are more about improving site navigation and placing useful information and links on one side of the Webpage," PC World notes.

The most interesting tweak, according to VentureBeat, is the site's revamped search function. "When you type in names, it auto-completes for people who are the closest to you by social proximity -- e.g. the people you share the most mutual friends with."

Perhaps adding fuel to the fire, the changes coincide with reports that Facebook is completely rewriting its messaging product, and is preparing to launch a fully featured webmail product in its place.

To be clear, neither of these developments are necessarily bad. "Project Titan, or whatever it's called when it launches, may be the kind of product people flock to," TechCrunch said of the new messaging product.

Still, Facebook's hundreds of millions of members are notorious for threatening to revolt over the smallest of changes.

"Facebook is well known for rolling out tweaks and visual changes to its homepage, and Facebook users are just as famous for voicing complaints about Facebook redesigns," PC World writes. "It's too early to tell if this round of Facebook changes will create a backlash, but at the time of this writing there were almost 3700 mostly negative comments on the company's blog post detailing the new homepage design."

"While the backlash is probably already picking up steam, most of the changes are for the better and reflect the site's updated goals," adds Softpedia. "Time will tell if the new direction Facebook is heading is the right one, though the site has been known to make 180 degree turns so nothing is set in stone."

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