This past weekend, Facebook rolled out a few new additions and changes to the website, yet no users had any idea that these changes were coming. The first change was the removal of the Highlights section, which shows what your friends have recently done while you were offline or what’s popular among them. Facebook also changed their News Feed, splitting it into two sections: Live Feed and News Feed. However, many members feel these changes are not for the better, and even some groups wanting the changes reversed have appeared, growing by hundreds of users per hour. So, why such a huge fuss over such “minor” tweaks?

Facebook hasn’t been known to make large amounts of design changes to their website, and when they have, it wasn’t a huge deal. However, the News Feed separation seems to be creating the most dissatisfaction. The Live Feed shows everything your friends are doing now, while the News Feed is for older events from the days before. Many say this is a small replication of the Twitter stream and so users who may not have been able to access the website for a day or two can catch up on the best news and updates from the previous day. However, many people disagree and prefer the old feed just the way it was and hate the new design, but it did not cause a significant traffic drop.

This displays the News Feed section, which shows older posts. The Live Feed, blank in the image, would show posts friends make while you’re online or throughout the course of the day.

Although Facebook executives plan to keep things the way they are, many users are still sending in their complaints. Many are comparing this to the dramatic changes made to MySpace that caused many users to leave or spending less time on the site, but many aren’t expecting people to leave over something like this. There are also rumors that Facebook will make more changes to profiles and their design by December, but there has been no conformation thus far.

Personally, I don’t like these changes, although change is important when you’re a site of this magnitude.

As we all know, social network has become a big part of our daily routine. Whether it’s posting a Tweet about your day, updating your Mood and Status on MySpace, or sending an IM to your friend on Facebook, the majority of Internet users use at least one social networking website. There are many aside from the three I’ve mentioned, but these three are the biggest ones on the Web and have the most traffic. A lot of people want to know how these websites fair against one another. So, we’ll be comparing traffic, the general user base, and a few other things.

MySpace – Likely the most well-known of the three websites, MySpace was founded in August 2003 by Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson. In 2005, it was purchased by News Corporation for $580 million dollars, and while many people it was the end of the MySpace era, is became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006, but was surpassed by Facebook for worldwide unique visits in 2008. The website is believed to be best known for revolutionizing pop culture and launching the still widely-popular MySpace Music service.

However, in recent months, MySpace’s unique visitor average has dropped from 55.6 million unique visitors in August to 50.2 million in September, and the company has dropped 20% in US traffic since June, and because of this, MySpace’s net value is decreasing greatly. There are still millions of people that use MySpace, but if you take a look at their traffic now compared to 2006, it’s dropped rapidly. Personally, I still prefer MySpace over Facebook, but as traffic drops, you’ll begin to notice more advertisements and some of your favorite features may start to disappear over time. However, the one website that has been gaining traffic while MySpace is slowly becoming irrelevant is Facebook, our next website to discuss.

Facebook – On February 4, 2004, Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, a student at Harvard University, along with several of his roommates. It started out as Thefacebook, but it has transformed into the second most viewed website, second only to Google. The website currently has more than 300 million active users worldwide, and while met with controversy, is widely popular. In January, a Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace. So, what is Facebook all about, and why should you use it?

Facebook has recently been rapidly expanding over the past two years. The reason? Facebook was originally designed for college students, but over time it has become a place for people who are typically older, whereas MySpace has become the social hub for a younger audience, although statistically speaking, the average MySpace user is 32, while the everyday Facebook user is 35 and older. Many older people are making the transition from MySpace to Facebook, though, so we can expect the numbers to change over the next few years. As of last month, Facebook is receiving 82.9 million unique visitors, which is about 33 million more than MySpace and almost 76 million more than Twitter. Facebook has a much simpler interface than MySpace and makes connecting with relatives and friends a lot easier than Twitter, so it’s fairly easy to see why people choose it. So, now we’re left with Twitter, the smallest of the three, yet what also appears to be the most promising.

Twitter – By now, you’ve probably heard of Twitter, whether is was mentioned by some celebrity, news corporation, etc. You may also hear people mention something about things called Tweets, and either it sounds like something ridiculous or a thing a bird would do. Originally founded by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone, it is created purely from private funding, which keeps the website running smooth and advertisement free. Twitter is known for 140 text-based messages and for sharing video, pictures, and links to cool web pages. So, what makes Twitter so unique? Let’s find out.

Although Twitter receives 55 million hits monthly, only about 6 or 7 of these are unique hits, which mean not many people are registering, but just a year ago, you would’ve never guessed Twitter would be such a huge hit. Over this past year, Twitter had a monthly growth of 1,382 percent, and no other website has come close to that kind of growth; Facebook, the second closest website, is trailing by over 1,000 percent. With an incredibly simple interface, the fastest growing network on the Web and one of the best ways for people to connect through short messages, Twitter is one of the most revolutionary websites we’ve ever seen, and it’s a great tool for anyone, including us at AbleBlogger.

So, with all of the new social networking buzz, it appears that Twitter and Facebook will soon dethrone MySpace as the “King of Social Networking” and fiercely compete for the title of best social networking website.