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One thing that's fascinating me is how they're letting this update deploy virally, by itself. You sign up for the new profile and your friends are going to see

One thing that's fascinating me is how they're letting this update deploy virally, by itself. You sign up for the new profile and your friends are going to see you did. If several of your friends do it, you're going to see that a number of them did. This is bound to be at least somewhat convincing, given that you trust your friends more than the faceless evil of Facebook Corp, and therefore it might be worth doing, and your curiosity will be piqued. Given Facebook's history with negative feedback around new features, this seems to me like the most brilliant part of the entire new profile - and it's very subtle, too.

cmelbye 16y ago
Yes, it seems to be working very successfully. The tour of the new features that appears after one's profile is upgraded was great too. Here's hoping they follow this model for future features.
evanrmurphy 16y ago
> One thing that's fascinating me is how they're letting this update deploy virally, by itself. Are you saying it's opt-in only for everyone? My friend got the new profile automatically, though I did not. I see that I can choose to get it manually, but the FAQ also says you cannot revert. Perhaps I've misunderstood your comment. I would be really impressed if the feature had total viral deployment (i.e. opt-in only for everyone), and if it allowed you to change back to the old profile at will.
- primigenus 16y ago
  I imagine they'd seed a few million profiles to start with, so probably a few people ("a few million" equates to "a few" in the Facebook ecosystem!) got converted over to hotstart things. Not surprising, really. Allowing you to change back to your old profile at will wouldn't be a very feasible move, I'd imagine. You want to move your userbase over to the new code as soon as possible so you can start iterating on that for everyone, without worrying about maintaining two versions.
  - evanrmurphy 16y ago
    > Allowing you to change back to your old profile at will wouldn't be a very feasible move, I'd imagine. I agree. It would be a real headache. That's why I would have been really impressed if they did it. Or rather, I would have been really impressed if they found a way to do it that wasn't a headache. :)

cmelbye 16y ago

Yes, it seems to be working very successfully. The tour of the new features that appears after one's profile is upgraded was great too. Here's hoping they follow this model for future features.

evanrmurphy 16y ago

> One thing that's fascinating me is how they're letting this update deploy virally, by itself. Are you saying it's opt-in only for everyone? My friend got the new profile automatically, though I did not. I see that I can choose to get it manually, but the FAQ also says you cannot revert. Perhaps I've misunderstood your comment. I would be really impressed if the feature had total viral deployment (i.e. opt-in only for everyone), and if it allowed you to change back to the old profile at will.

primigenus 16y ago
I imagine they'd seed a few million profiles to start with, so probably a few people ("a few million" equates to "a few" in the Facebook ecosystem!) got converted over to hotstart things. Not surprising, really. Allowing you to change back to your old profile at will wouldn't be a very feasible move, I'd imagine. You want to move your userbase over to the new code as soon as possible so you can start iterating on that for everyone, without worrying about maintaining two versions.
- evanrmurphy 16y ago
  > Allowing you to change back to your old profile at will wouldn't be a very feasible move, I'd imagine. I agree. It would be a real headache. That's why I would have been really impressed if they did it. Or rather, I would have been really impressed if they found a way to do it that wasn't a headache. :)