Users of the social-networking giant Facebook, are angry over recent updates to the popular website.

Facebook is accused of trying too hard to compete with its newest rival Google+.

Myles Penfold-Smith reports.

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Facebook says it wanted to give users more control over the updates they receive from friends.

But what the users got was a headache.

Members are outraged and frustrated with the new interface and features, unsure why Facebook had to change at all.

Susan Hetherington, QUT Journalism Lecturer: “It’s about the fact they feel they need to be relevant, and so they keep needing to change what they’re doing, if it’s just same old same old, people will get tired of it and go away.”

Professor Hetherington is an online media enthusiast, and says Facebook needs to stay up to date, or follow Myspace into comparative irrelevancy.

Nevertheless, user outcry is flooding Twitter.

Accusations include that it’s too difficult to navigate, it’s too cluttered, it’s too much like twitter, it’s a stalkers’ paradise.

For example, users can now subscribe to peoples’ updates and news feeds, even if they’re not friends.

But this isn’t the first time a Facebook update has been received poorly.

It may outrage the community for a while, but over time, the members will learn to accept the changes, and before long, forget there even was an old Facebook.

The difference this time, is that Facebook has a rival: Google Plus is fully up and running.

Having been refining itself during a 90 day field trial, Google Plus is now a very real threat to Facebook’s dominance.

But the giant won’t go down easily there’s too much money at stake.

Facebook expects to collect more than four billion dollars in advertising revenue this year.

Susan Hetherington, QUT Journalism Lecturer: “I do not think we’ve seen the end of Facebook by a long shot, despite all the people who say they’re never coming back, they will be back.”

Myles Penfold-Smith, QUT News.