KWPro.net

I don't know what Facebook did in addition to their front end user interface changes, but Facebook now seems to have numerous backend problems as well.  I've been feeling that the service has become extremely sluggish since the update.  Most specifically, the news feeds do not update real time anymore.  Probably, at this stage of the game it's too late for them to rollback.  However, I would suggest to management that if their changes only affected the front end and that their backend is salvagable, they should rollback to the previous version.

This latest rollout to me demonstrates that Facebook has been doing poor planning in terms of releases.  I remember a while back Facebook did a beta test when releasing one of their prior versions.  I'm surprised that Facebook has foresaken this release process in favor of forcibly having a major update like this opened to a gradually increasing audience.  Since Facebook is very user driven, foregoing this release process without significant community feedback on a test site will hurt their reputation down the line.

Considering that Facebook has slowly been alienating (i.e. pissing off) their user base over privacy issues, Facebook must tread carefully in rolling out major releases.  Many of my friends are slowly abandoning Facebook as a result of these privacy, performance and the foreboding pay system that has rumored to be going around.

I mean, considering that they have a "like" and "comment" feature attached to everything, how hard would it be to set aside a dedicated section to a large number of users for beta testing major massive releases?  That would instantly provide feedback that improve their product.