The media have been ever ready to attack anything Internet related as either the root of all evil or a fad that will disappear after a short period of time.

Social media websites, being the “new” thing have been repeatedly attacked as a bubble ready to burst - a claim I’ve always thought was way off the mark. My opinion was that users were becoming more mature and using websites in a different way with just some flaky users just stopping use.

Well Facebook have announced their first 100 million users (although how many inactive accounts is a mystery) and Hitwise is showing Facebook traffic is up 50% year on year. Now these are hardly figures showing a bubble bursting are they?

People like to socialise and it’s only natural they’re going to extend this online if the tools are available.

The outcry at Facebook “imposing” its new design on usershas surprised me. After all I thought people using the system might be pleased to see improvements. It would seem however that the usual fear of change you see in the general populous is pretty virulent in the Facebook community too. There are Facebook groups against the new layout and even online petitions.

Lets assume this is just a visual redesign - I’d still take Facebook’s side it’s their website to do as they wish. Why should they keep the overhead of running two designs that can mean maintenance and upgrades are more difficult?

But deep down the new layout isn’t just about visual appeal (although I much prefer the cleaner look) it’s all about usability and they’ve done a good job. Everything is still easy to be found but the tabbed interface stops everything growing out of control.

Applications and application spam for me and many others has been the bane of Facebook but they’ve handled it well. I can block applications permanently and even all application requests from certain people who I know are a bit free and easy will adding anything and everything to their profile (and sending it to all their friends at the same time) - you know who you are!

Now the new interface means the applications are moved to a separate tab so I no longer need to go onto friends pages and wait for the hundreds of applications to load or scroll for approximately 900 miles down the page to find their wall!

So what are the downsides of the new design? Oh yeah you might have to spend 5 minutes looking around to find where everything is. Five minutes is an exaggeration to be honest as everything is in a very logical position.

If these people got their way we’d still be living in caves.

Many apologies for the break in posting but on this occasion I have a fairly good excuse. Last Sunday (17th August) my wife went into labour and shortly after I became a Dad for the first time!

Jack Finley North and Emma are both doing great and after the initial shock of things (Jack arrived 4 weeks early and within 3 hours) I can honestly say I’ve never been so chuffed.

Things are hectic at the moment so my posts might be a little eratic for the next few weeks but I’ll try to get posting with some regularity as soon as possible.

Wait for a bus and then two come along at once? Well same thing today but with social media websites.

Firstly Smarta.com is billing itself as a information resource for business. Essentially providing social support for your business or future business projects. With the official launch in November 2008 you can check out the blog and register for updates as they come. I’m going to keep an eye on this one as it seems to be backed by some big names like Vodafone and various UK Government agencies.

The next one is called GetCloser.com which is social media site built on your music and film tastes. It’s produced by HMV and isn’t getting the best of press. I’ve had a discussion with Scott Boyd at Fused Nation and he’s got some valid points about how this service is basically a cynical customer profiling system. While I agree about HMV’s motivation for this website I have to say I actually think it’s a very clever way of getting excellent quality data from your customers - you’ve got to respect that.

Are people willing to trade a window into their World for a few nice features on a website? On the whole the answer is yes - people are far too free and easy with their information in my opinion. The law can cover data protection but if people want to hand their personal information over to every Tom, Dick and Harry then they should learn not to be so naive. In the same way that regulation of social networks for children should take the lead from parents protection of your data should start at home.

However other aspects of GetCloser’s marketing of this site are darn right stupid with their marketing agency spamming forums with beta test invitations. Yeah I’ll sign up! Not!