Today Facebook accounced in their official blog, that the new design is now being rolled out… If you can’t wait to see what they’ve been working on, there is a live preview available at www.new.facebook.com.

One of the main catalysts for the majority of user interface improvements is that many profiles are were being swamped by third party applications, making it difficult to find popular features. This is testament to the overwhelming success of the facebook platform developer program, but also a new Achilles Heel. The new design seeks to provide a solution by separating profile content into the following tabs:

• Wall - Combines both the mini-feed and wall into one single feed.
• Info - Tucks away your personal info, contacts, groups and pages. This is very neat and prevents unnecessary scrolling.
• Photos - I take too many photos and think there should be an option to display more than five albums at once.
• Boxes – This is where zombies suck blood, chickens hatch and aquariums bubble… Good riddance! Although it would be nice to selectively push certain apps back towards the front of the profile. For example, I’m a fan of the last.fm and like to keep friends updated with what I’m currently listening to. I used to place this directly above the wall for this very reason, and have yet to find a way of promoting this to the front of my profile.
• It’s also possible for the users to create their own custom tabs to further organise their profile into sections.

It seems that application developers might need to tweak the presentation of their apps to ensure they are in keeping with their new surroundings. Some might complain that haven’t had enough time to tweak their applications.

There are minor evolutions to the privacy controls. For example, the mini-feed now has a a new drop-down menu next to albums stories that links straight to privacy settings. A notable improvement is the introduction of a new “view as” mode that allows you to see exactly how any individual friend will view your profile.

In true facebook style, there will no doubt be an uproar and numerous groups opposed to the change, just as there was with the introduction of the mini-feed and incumbent design. The dust will settle, and we might well see further tweaks based upon how well this release performs in the wild. Certainly, for now at least, this outrageously successful cyber-distraction will continue to rule social web.