By Senior Editor – Kris Smith (@croncast)

As most of you know based on logging in to Facebook since last evening or have read in nearly every media outlet – Facebook got a facelift.

A slight nip tuck and a little work done on the nose. The nose of course being a slightly larger search box in the center top of a user’s home page. And the nip tuck is where the Facebook doctors designers did A/B comparisons between Facebook Lite and the aging regular Facebook to guide their pixel shaving hands.

This is just the beginning of a new era in online experiences that will brought to us by the Facebook.

Just as Facebook’s massive growth due to higher unemployment drove it past Google for page views in December this new look opens the flood gates for them to add new features that aren’t intrusive, highly useful and will create an even greater time sink for users.

Facebook is bringing the search box for what many see as the eventual holy grail of social search and discovery. Imagine being able to combine Google, TMZ , the BFF’s and a search algorithm peppered with flakes of your past search history and Facebook usage. That is, in two words, Holy Moses!

I’ve got another post coming in a bit to address this in full but for now let’s move on.

As expected this change in appearance has ruffled the many feathers of users that aren’t thinking about Facebook’s future but concerned with its present, or now, or however you say ‘what is in front of them at this moment.’

Moving interface elements around and removing visual landmarks for interactivity never win redesigned sites favor in the beginning. Users warm up over time to the new look and will forget about it the next time new features come their way when they are trying to get to mail and have something new to be reactionary against.

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