Facebook Getting Facelift With Redesign

Facebook is cleaning up its image. Not that it was tarnished, just cluttered.

The social networking site announced a redesign this week aimed at cleaning up users' profile pages and improving organization now that the site has more than 20,000 applications. The new applications will be organized in one of four tabbed categories for easier navigation and access.

The other tabs will carry personal information, photos, and feed. Users can put their applications under other tabs if they want.

The "Applications" link at the top of the page contains a dropdown menu with a "Bookmarks" section. There, Facebook users can add their favorite applications. The menu also contains a "Recent Applications" section.

All of the tabs will be located at the top of user profile pages and the new layout is expected to cut down on the need to scroll down to view the pages.

A new "Publisher Box" will allow users to add content directly to their profiles, saving them the trouble of navigating to different pages.

Facebook will unveil its new look in June, but the site already provided a sneak peek this week.

The new design is also expected to give users more control over which details about themselves they want to highlight.

The site has more than 70 million members worldwide. Members of Facebook and other social networking sites tend to be outspoken about changes to their online communities. Users have become increasingly engaged with the site since it opened itself to outside applications.

Facebook announced that it may touch up elements of the redesign in response to user feedback.

"As you can see from the screenshots we just posted, the changes we are making to the top navigation are fairly straightforward, but we definitely wanted to let you know we were planning on doing this," the company explained. "Keep in mind the design isn't finalized, so the screenshots may change before this launches."