Much ado over yet another change to Facebook's profile page

Facebook today released more details about a major user profile overhaul that was supposed to take place early last month but is now back on track.

Although MySpace is considered the more popular social networking site overall, Facebook remains especially popular among college students and young professionals looking for a social network that is more organized and easier to navigate. The latest redesign to Facebook centers on the user profile page, taking account of several key modifications requested by Facebook users and the developers who create Facebook applications.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly undertook the redesign process on his own, but his own development team took over the reins after learning of Zuckerberg's design plans for the site. Rather than have a drastic overhaul that would discourage developers, the team settled upon crucial changes to the site geared not just toward organization but also gadget placement.

In the new design, each user profile will have a Feed, Info, Photos, Wall, and "Boxes" categories, with modifications made to each category.

The new Facebook Wall will allow friends to write Wall posts just like the old Wall, but will also allow users to create their own content, and "applications can publish Feed stories." The ability to be able to look at a friend's new feed story is one of the most popular features of Facebook, and the new design will put the Feed tab in the center of users' profiles. The biggest change will be the ability to change the size of the story -- one line, short, or full -- and each application will be able to be listed in any size.

A new About tab will be the default location where users can write about themselves, but in a more organized manner than before. Each photo will also have an individual tab under the new design for ease of navigation.

The Boxes section will be a new area where all application profile boxes will be located, and boxes can be enabled or disabled by the user.

The new Publisher feature is expected to let users chare content from their own profile along with their friends' profiles. Text, photos, music, links, videos, and similar content can be added using the Publisher, with Facebook claiming it's a "major upgrade" to the current generation of Wall attachments.

The latest Facebook update appears to be designed for people who have a large number of applications on their page, though casual users may find themselves browsing into unfamiliar territory once the update is launched.

Developers who create Facebook applications and widgets will receive access to a beta site to test their builds later this month, with the Facebook changes made public a few weeks later.

The last major change to Facebook was in September 2006, when the News Feed and Mini-Feed functions were added to the social networking site. Privacy issues sparked a protest at Facebook headquarters along with a Facebook Students Against Facebook News Feeds group that had more than 700,000 members join in an effort to get Facebook to add privacy measures to the News Feed.