Quite the thing took place overnight Aussie time, a thing that will scare the pants off you.

It went down like this:

1. Mike Melanson of ReadWriteWeb (an IT blog) wrote a blog post about Facebook Connect and AOL instant messenger teaming up. The kicker here is that his article title included the words ‘facebook’ and ‘login’. Ok.
2. Mike’s article jumps to one of the top Google search results for ‘facebook login’. Still ok.
3. Google search users (perhaps thrown by the use of ‘facebook’ and ‘login’ in the title) click on the blog post and mistake Mike’s article for facebook. Yep, ACTUAL facebook.
4. The confused Google users then proceed to post a barrage of hostile/threatening/confused/increasingly desperate comments on the article, all basically along the lines of “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY FACEBOOK? WHY WON’T YOU LET ME LOGIN?? WHY DO YOU CHANGE ALL THE GOOD THINGS IN LIFE???”

The fact that facebook has recently gone through a subtle redesign has thrown many people off. Instead of arriving at readwriteweb and thinking ‘this doesn’t look like facebook, clearly I’m in the wrong place, let’s try again’, they’ve assumed that the facebook redesign has this time been more (‘ow do you say?) radical, and that what they’re looking at is in fact the new facebook.

This morning Aussie time, there are pages and pages of comments on this article. And now that you have the back story, I’d strongly recommend you go read them.

I know that this screams of internet elitism, but it’s also a handy reminder for those (of us) who work in web design and usability - do not make any assumptions.

This is what the world (in part) really looks like:

• The new facebook sucks> NOW LET ME IN.
• I WANT THE OLD FAFEBOOK BACK THIS SHIT IS WACK!!!!!
• EXCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY NOT JUST LEAVE IT ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!1111
• This is such a mess I can’t do a thing on my facebook .The changes you have made are ridiculous,I can’t even login!!!!!I am very upset!!!
• Can we log into face book? This is crazy I want to get all my info off and be done with this. I recently moved from MN to SC Myrtle Beach and facebook was a great way to keep in touch with family and friends but this is getting to be to difficult.
• I don’t like the new face book page. I want the old face book page back. Plus the updates run slow or the pages freezes
• Seams like all of the comets i read agree with me you people messed up royal i was enjoying facebook now i am thinking of getting rid of it all
• I LOVE FACE BOOK CONNECTED W/PEOPLE I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL W/ESPECIALY ONE CLOSE FRIEND.KNOW LET ME LOG IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• i liked the old way better what advantages do we have with the new way takes to long to sign in fix it back
• I am going to delete my account (IF I CAN EVER LOG IN) as this SUCKS BIG TIME ! If this does not get back to NORMAL you are going to lose a lot of folks who hate this and as you can see from all the comments they think it sucks too !!! facebook was great for connecting with old friends …now, NOT SO MUCH. SO HOW DO I LOG IN ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
• Who’s idea was this?? Hope he’s not too big to fire cause he just LOST a bunch of faithful users. Chances are it’ll never be the same as it was before….cya
• im going back to my fuckin space u ass holes have to fuck up a good this !!!!! dumn asses
• You reallllly don’t want to know what I think. I was doing pretty good until now. I want a nice EASY login like I had before!!!!!
• this is not a good thing i just don’t think u have thought this thru. I haven’t made a decision yet but i might give facebook up this is too much trouble
• I want to get into Facebook. How about it? Yes or No? Norm

• Jolie- GIVE ME MY OLD FACEBOOK BACK YOU STEAL MY SHIT ONE MORE TIME AND I’LL FLIP A LID YOU STALKER. SRSLY.

Readwriteweb have also written their own account of what happened here. I also love that they have updated the original blog post with a handy paragraph explaining to wayward Google users that RWW is not facebook, giving tips on how to search for facebook, and then bookmarking it for future use.

Ah. The Interwebs.