• CNet, Monday, March 23, 2009 11:45 AM

Facebook users are once again up-in-arms over the most recent design changes Mark Zuckerberg and company have made to the popular social networking site. The changes, which seem to have been inspired by the looming threat of microblogging upstart Twitter, have been met with 624,665 comments from Facebook users, and almost all of them are negative. CNet does a good round up of the varying reactions by bloggers and critics to the Facebook redesign. Over at Gawker's Valleywag, a source claims that Zuckerberg said in an email that it isn't necessarily useful for the company to listen to its users this time. "He said something like 'the most disruptive companies don't listen to their customers,'" the source said. After all, resistance to change is human nature, right?

Elsewhere on the Web, others are trying to find a silver lining. Eric Eldon and MG Siegler at VentureBeat said the company "needs to do a better job easing users into this redesign. If it wants people to do their own filtering using lists, it needs to make sure they know how. That's why above the feed filters, there should be two options: One to show you the news feed after the redesign, and one 'legacy feed' below to show you just the core Facebook elements that were previously in the news feed prior to the redesign.

Meanwhile, blogger Robert Scoble is firmly against Facebook listening to its users this time. "Anyway, all those who are saying the new design sucks should NOT be listened to. Yeah, I know a lot of people are going to get mad at me for saying that. After all, how can a blogger say to not listen to the masses? Easy: I've seen the advice the masses are giving and most of it isn't very good for Facebook's business interests..."

Read the whole story at CNet »