Big Facebook redesign to give users more control

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Facebook's redesign aims to make user profiles more dynamic by giving more prominence to the newest information, and it is cracking down on applications that violate privacy or user-control guidelines.

"Users should have control of their information when and where they want," said Ben Ling, the head of Facebook's platform product management. "Users should share things because they want to share them."

Facebook will offer members a cleaner and simpler set of the Web pages which make up personal profiles. These profiles, which can be organized into tabbed pages, let users share tidbits of their lives with select groups of friends or colleagues.

Previously, members could edit largely static parts of their profiles such as birth date, education or music interests.

"Facebook is making significant changes, both in terms of what information gets prominence and what gets buried," said Gartner analyst Ray Valdes, adding that the changes may seem abrupt to many users.

"The company is trying to eliminate some of the toxic threats to the Facebook experience."

VIRAL TRICKS

Facebook's popularity has surged since the site became an open platform for independent designers to distribute their own Web programs 14 months ago - attracting developers who have created 24,000 programs, and inspiring a new Web vocabulary with terms like "SuperPoke".

But the format has given rise to a new form of spam, nicknamed BACN (pronounced ba-con), which is sent by software makers using viral marketing tricks to flood members with confusing messages seemingly from friends.

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