Facebook is getting the redesign to end all redesigns. Maybe.

Posted by: Kevin Sexton Posted date: September 23, 2011 In: Facebook, Other Stuff | comment : 0

Yesterday Facebook held its f8 conference, announcing many, many things. Here's the the breakdown of everything that's happening:

New profile pages called 'Timelines'. For those of you familiar with Facebook tablet apps or the Flipboard App for iPad, this will look quite familiar: well designed, magazine-esque layout for all the most interesting content on your page, with an emphasis on being able to see the big picture as you scroll back through the months and years. If you want to try it out right now (it goes live for everyone on the 30th of September) follow Techcrunch's super handy guide here.
'Social news' integration. With a laundry list of partners signed up, Facebook is looking to bring all of your current affairs needs to the social network. The Guardian, Independent, and many others are going to be reformatting their content for delivery through Facebook, hopefully making the whole thing more convenient and cleaner at if you're optimistic, centralising and monopolistic if you're not.
Video integration. Although perhaps not so pertinent for us in the UK, Netflix and Hulu dominate US online film and episode streaming, and they're coming to Facebook. Hopefully we'll see either those companies make a European entrance soon, or have the British veterans iPlayer, 4od and Lovefilm sign deals with Zuckerberg and co.
Music integration. Deals have been made with a plethora of music streaming sites, Spotify being the biggest fish in this particular pond. Users of Mog, rhapsody, Rdio, Soundcloud, Mixcloud and many others will also be shown some love here though. The biggest (possibly scariest) feature here is the ability to see what any of your friends are listening to, in real time, at any given point if they're using these services.

In general, the focus is on constant, ubiquitous sharing of content. Mark Zuckerberg calls this 'real time serendipity' Many others will call it 'a really effective way to target ads to you and everyone you know'. Nevertheless, the new features are shaping up to be a whole new, ahem, face, for Facebook, and right now, it looks to be quite a pretty one indeed.