Imitation/flattery

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As a subscriber to last.fm, I get to have a sneak-peek at the music website's brand-new version, currently in development. It's got a raft of new features and a radical new look to boot. Personally, I think it looks pretty cool (although a little bit bland), but some of the other members have been levelling the following insult at the new clean, white pages: "it looks too much like Facebook".

Ironically, Facebook won't look much like Facebook soon, because it's also getting a makeover. Until you could add applications, one of the beauties of Facebook was that it was nice and simple: but now people are adding hundreds of stupid quizzes (What Cheese Are You?) and pointless features (Picture Of A Cat Of The Day!), the old style doesn't really work anymore.

The changes are being bought in gradually – we've already lost control over many of the sections on our profiles, like the ability to collapse the (often pointless) Mini Feed – but inevitably people will kick up a fuss. Especially when they realise they've taken the Wall away...

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