Take a deep breath midlifers, Facebook is tweaking itself…

Good morning midlife new media newbies…and other midlife entrepreneurs who have embarked on using Facebook. 

Well, the good news is that Facebook is working to improve itself.  You will see that the "status" now starts with: "What's on your mind".  I guess if Facebook couldn't buy Twitter, they decided to try to replicate the "tweet" format for the basic newsfeed that you give to your friends.

This is not all bad, but to quote my 21 year old nephew, "Why the heck do they KEEP changing Facebook….leave it alone for a while".

For those of us who love to change (I really like to keep improving things..), most of us know that you need to make changes, try them out, get feedback and then continue the improvement process. 

If you KEEP changing without ANY use time, how can one tell if the changes are in the right direction???  So, I HOPE that Facebook has a few changes under their belt, and at some point here will stop, let us learn the new features and we can give them some feedback. 

I heard the other day on the news that we, Midlifers, ARE the fastest growing user group on Facebook and social media.  (After all, we were the smallest user group, so it takes less mathematically for us to grow on a percentage basis! )

So, as I have played a bit, the jury is still out for me about the changes. They have added some features that have added complexity. 

I would recommend that if you are still a beginner, that you stick to the basics.  Add Friends, do your status updates, set your Privacy settings to make your profile as visible as you prefer…etc. 

For Facebook Pages, they have given us a bit more flexibility (see my post from the other day). 

Here is an article that I found with some critique of these latest changes….I found it to be one of the better ones out there.

AND….please take a deep breath and know that you are not the only one who may be frustrated until you learn about the changes and how they affect your use of Facebook. 

Remember that you do NOT need to use ALL the features….just those that make the tool useful for YOU.

FYI…will be sending an email out to our lists this coming Tuesday about Elizabeth's birthday conversations (series of virtual conversations on Wednesday 3/18/09 with some of her very fun and interesting friends)…

AND in the email on Tuesday, we will provide the information about another free social media teleseminar that we are offering this coming Friday (3/20/09) at Noon Central…and yes we will have a replay!!!

Have a great weekend!

Barb