Facebook shrinks Page Tabs (760px -> 520px)! Why?
As you would have read in the title, Facebook has recently shot out a warning to all developers and page owners that their page tabs will be automatically resized August 23rd 2010.
At first glance I was “meh” but quickly realized what this meant. This essentially BREAKS every custom tab I have on Facebook as it makes the tabs 31% smaller. This means any images larger than 31% will be cut-off. Facebook has stated that THEY WILL NOT AUTOMATICALLY RE-ADJUST YOUR PAGE Every page that I have ever created has used some form of an FBML custom tab.
…
Ugh. So I decided to research into why they would make this drastic change.
WHY Change the Fan Page Dimensions?
Facebook claims:
These updates are designed to simplify navigation for users, reduce complexity for developers, and enable us to build the next generation of tools for growing your business with Facebook.
But we all know Facebook – like any company is driven by the “dolla-dolla-bills-y’all”
My Beliefs Behind the Changes:
Fortunately they have not adjusted the vertical hight allowing for pages to be completely customizable in length. These changes also do not affect application pages. Starting today I have begun to update the “canvas” of all my pages to reflect these changes. In short it just means adjusting all the image and div sizes to fit the 520px mark. I wish you all the best in doing the same!
@Darlington
Totally agree with you on this one! Wider ads makes sense, especially if they introduce interactive ones (via Flash / HTML5). All the custom side-bar boxes (e.g. travel search engines, contests etc.) will have to be replaced with paid-ads.
Hopefully the new Google social network will be a breath of fresh air, but then again, Google is Ad King!