Take a visual tour of the new Facebook

As expected, Facebook announced big changes to the platform Thursday, including a splashy visual overhaul that puts photos front and center. As we've all come to learn, anytime Mark Zuckerberg and Co. change anything, tons of people will hate it. Others will love it. Some will think it's just okay. Let's take a look, shall we?

1. A fresh start

First up, here's what the new Facebook news feed is going to look like. Notice how it's much more visually oriented — kind of like Google+:

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

2. New feeds

One of the more notable features is a new Feeds system, which lets you organize your news feed based on the kind of content you want to see — including a Photo feed, Music feed, Video feed, and Games. These will self-organize depending on which feeds you use the most.

3. Here's what the Music feed looks like:

4. More consistency

New Facebook was designed to look similar across all your devices. (The new iPad, iPhone, and Android versions are due out soon.) That means less clumsy poking around on tiny little links; more big pictures to tap:

5. Here's how photo albums will be presented:

6. Upcoming events

Do you use Facebook to manage who's coming to what? If so, you'll be happy to know that the oft-ignored events section will get a visual facelift, too:

7. Maps

The same goes for location-based check-ins. Facebook's engineers announced that you'll be able to further investigate an area of interest on a map that your friends frequent. Facebook used Yosemite as a (rather unimpressive) example:

Interested? Get on the waiting list here. Facebook said roll out starts today. If you get it, let us know what you think.