Facebook profiles get a nip and tuck to sum you up in bite-sized chunks

Facebook has had a facelift, with your profile enjoying a new look. In an official blog post, a number of new features are unveiled that make your profile more attractive to people who don't know you so well.

The first change is a new overview beneath your name so visitors get a snapshot of who you are and what you do. That must be aimed more at people who don't actually know you, like old friends catching up, new friends learning more about you, or strangers stalking you.

You can edit this overview, and tailor it to show your best side to potential friends or employers, and old acquaintances to whom you want to make it clear that you now earn more than them.

Underneath the text overview is a row of recently tagged photos of you. If a picture taken by one of your japesome colleagues of you wearing a silly hat has slipped in there, you can hide it from the slideshow.

Photo albums can be dragged and dropped so you can keep near the top the ones in which you looked thin. Photos themselves are now grouped on one page for infinite scrolling with just a tap of the space bar through badly lit, fuzzy photos of people you don't know drinking and shouting.

You inspire me

The option to include your religion and political leanings, as well as people and quotations that inspire you, appears under philosophy.

If you choose from people already on Facebook's list, and if they have similar names, you don't know which one you're going to get -- we wanted to add a certain spiky-haired television reviewer, but we ended up with Ian Morris the Trinidadian runner or Ian Morris the Most Promising New Zealand Male Vocalist 1987 for The Ballad of Buckskin Bob.

Add James T Kirk and you get a real American Civil War officer instead of a two-fisted, bare-chested intergalactic love machine. Elmer Fudd isn't on the list, but Hitler is; make of that what you will.

Inspirational personages join interests such as films and music in showing a row of five thumbnails that show your favourites.

You can also list the projects you worked on at your job and classes you took in school along with your likes and hobbies, as if anyone gives a schmitzik. The job projects thing is interesting as it sidles Facebook one step closer to LinkedIn business territory.

A friend featured is a friend indeed

To the left are your featured friends, a feature that was previously offered by the Top Friends app. The left-hand sidebar now shows selected friends grouped into lists such as 'family', or 'work', or 'people I only met once who have now turned out to be kind of annoying'. You can add as many people as you like to these; this Craver now has several mothers.

In the privacy settings, all the new options can be customised so they're hidden or seen by everyone, friends, selected groups, or even specific individuals. Visit a friend's profile and you'll see all the things you share in common, like mutual friends, events you're both going to, and photos you're both in.

The new-look profile seems to present a unified summation of who you are, what you do and who you're connected to -- all of which seems more useful to people who aren't in your immediate social circle.

That looks like Facebook expanding into a network of people loosely associated by links other than actual real-life feelings of warmth and companionsip, similar to the professional network of LinkedIn.

To upgrade to the new profile, head for facebook.com/about/profile. Tell us how much you hate it in the comments below.