Facebook COO: Redesign Protest Just Noise

Ignore the haters -- Facebook's new look is going over just fine.

That was the message from Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who was interviewed by BusinessWeek editor Steve Adler at the American Magazine Conference.

Sandberg acknowledged that the social networking site has roused some users' ire with its recent redesign. The upside, she said, is most of them are venting their anger right on Facebook.

"People are using our product to protest our product," he said. "That's good. The fifth most popular group on Facebook right now is protesting the Facebook redesign. And I do see the humor in that."

She compared the backlash to the one that occurred upon the introduction of Facebook's Newsfeed feature. "We're optimistic that people are going to get used to it and like it as they did with Newsfeed," she said. "Newsfeed is probably the single most important thing that's made Facebook work."

"Joking aside, it's going quite well," she added. "We're actually quite pleased with it. The real thing we want to look for is if usage falling off, and we're not seeing that at all."