Facebook released a new design prototype to the public on the 21st July, but I only managed to test it out earlier today (I know I’m slow lar – but those that don’t know about this, better get ready for its main launch hehe…).

Anyway, after trying it out, I can only say this.. “I LOVE IT!”

Over the last year, Facebook has become synonymous with massive hordes of viral applications that serve no real purpose, with many of them doing the same thing in different ways. Send me a hatching egg, no send me a growing gift instead.. no SPAM BOTH of em as gifts. Poke your friends, no, superpoke them better, or X them or Hug them or whatever. Write on your wall, your Superwall, your Advanced Wall, heck got nothing to write, so just forward lameass videos, other peoples artwork and chain letters. Vampires lar, Werewolves, Gangsters lar, Mafias, Soldiers lar, Knights, Anything lar.. iDescribe me, Superlatives, Nickname me, Have sex with me, etc etc etc etc. The list goes on and on and on..

Facebook literally became the biggest and most cluttered up social networking site (rivaling MySpace) and waste of time ever.

Honestly, I’d prefer to just log on to see new photos uploaded by my friends, read other friends notes comments and conversations, establish new contacts with like-minded people in Groups, get updated on latest events and who’s attending, chat, and more, instead of the silly stuff above.

The New Facebook does just that! It’s ultra streamlined, leaner, cleaner and meaner now. A lot more emphasis is placed on your relationships and social circle activities and the previous focus on useless apps has been removed.

Here’s what I like most about The New Facebook:

Awesome Feature #1 : Tabs!

I love tabs. Sometimes I wish I can tab everything and not just websites in my browser. The New Facebook automatically separates your Profile into 3 main tabs – Your Wall, Info and Photos. Which is great, because it minimizes clutter and these are the 3 main things people want to see when they visit your profile anyway.

What’s even better is that you can also add your favourite Application into New tabs! You know all those movable hideable windows that your various apps used to have in your old Facebook profile? Well, you can move ALL of them into a Tab called Boxes. Talk about compartmentalizing! At least I don’t have to leave them cluttering up my Facebook profile now.

Awesome Feature #2 : The Publisher

You can post new photos, write on your wall, publish new stuff, write a new Note, update your status, etc etc, simply by accessing your own Profile. Less hassle..

Awesome Feature #3 : The NEW Wall

The biggest change of all IMHO. The Wall has now been MERGED with the News Feed! Now your profile page just shows a long list of the latest news related to you, as well as Wall messages from your friends. True that it might be hard to find certain things – but that’s easily remedied with a Wall ‘Filter’ which allows you to split your Wall posts into either posts from yourself and posts from your friends.

Fuck the other walls and their spam content man.

Awesome Feature #4 : New Sidebar

This narrow spot is now the only place for you to park applications that you want to display on Facebook. At this time, it seems that most applications do not display properly when parked there, as its too narrow. But I wouldn’t mind putting a few relevant and useful apps here (eg. a birthday calendar, my daily horoscope, motivational quotes).. But I had some major problems getting most apps to display here for now.. guess the application developers have some updating to do…

And now the BEST PART. IF you click on a friend’s link to view THEIR profile…

You can now ‘comment’ on almost EVERY single Wall post / News Feed on their profile page! XXX just added YYY as a friend and you want to comment? Comment away! XXX joined YYY group, comment away! Hey, you can even have a ‘comment conversation’ on just a single news feed! This should be the right way to maintain social circles at a networking site like Facebook – rather than through all the pointless applications..

Currently, you can choose to use the New Facebook by logging into the new URL at http://www.new.facebook.com in case Facebook’s ‘Try Me’ link doesn’t work.

There will definitely be resistance to change no doubt – especially by many of the application developers and their respective fans, since the concept has changed quite radically. For example, when Airin first tried it out – she was upset that she couldn’t see her FluffPet (and her beautifully decorated habitat) on her Profile page anymore (which also means that public profile viewers might not be able to ‘pet, feed or race’ her Pet as often). I completely understand her since I once actively used that app before… but I’m sure its just a matter of getting used to how certain things work.. I for one have added my Fluff Friends to a tab of its own..

There are plenty of other minor changes (social ad placements, the way photos are handled, homepage layout, etc.) Overall however, I see this is as a good sign for Facebook, as its maturing into something that will be functionally better for its users at the end of the day. We just have to keep an open mind…