Facebook grumblers prompt a layout change

Facebook has been deluged with feedback on its new layout, much of it negative, which has resulted in the social networking site adapting of the changes.

While the social network isn't reverting back to the old page design, it is making a handful of changes to appease some of the outraged masses, according to blog posted on Tuesday by product director Christopher Cox.

"Over time, we'll continue to give you more control over what's in your main stream and how you consume it. We have the eventual goal of building filters that summarise this activity so you can see a more condensed view of what's been going on. We're also thinking about ways of filtering out some of the Wall posts and content directed to specific people to focus more on posts shared with everyone," he said in the post.

No specific timeframe was mentioned for most of the updates, though Facebook said one update, the photo tag update, would happen "in the coming weeks".

Cox invited more feedback from users, directing people to the tour of the redesign where people can leave their comments.

Some of the changes already in the works include:

• Live updating: Users will have the ability to turn on auto updating so they don't have to refresh the page to see what's new.
• Photo tags: Facebook will add photos tagged with a person's friends to the user's stream.
• Applications: Users will have the ability to cut down on the application-related content that's showing up in streams.
• Highlights: This section in the right-hand column will update more frequently and show more content, much like the old News Feed.
• Requests: Friend requests and event invites will be moved to the top of the right-hand column so they're more prominent.

Original article: Facebook changes coming in response to user complaints from CNET News.com