---
title: "Facebook Adds Ajax – Abandoning Page Views?"
date: 2007-07-17
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2007"
    url: "/tag/2007.md"
---

# Facebook Adds Ajax – Abandoning Page Views?

I noticed a small, but perhaps significant, change in Facebook tonight. Usually when you add more friends to your Facebook account, you need to land on 3 separate pages for each friend: 1) the Requests page; 2) a Request Confirmation/Skip This Step page (I always click ‘Skip This Step’), and finally 3) back to the confirmation page. Three page views for each friend added.

But tonight I noticed that the 2nd step has been Ajaxified – meaning you no longer need to land on a Request Confirmation/Skip This Step page. Instead it is an Ajax pop-up. Now, math has never been my strong point — but doesn’t this mean that the normal 3-page process has been whittled down to 1 page? Won’t that play havoc with Facebook’s precious page views? Weeell, maybe Facebook has realised that the [Tyranny of the Page View](https://web.archive.org/web/20110830142324/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tyranny_of_the_page_view.php) is over.

![](https://web.archive.org/web/20110830142324im_/http://rww.readwriteweb.netdna-cdn.com/images/facebook/facebook_ajax.jpg)*Look Ma, no page view!*

If my eyes haven’t deceived me (and it is late as I write this), then this is a bold move by Facebook and one I heartily applaud. If it’s a permanent move and not just a test. Page view stats are an antiquated web stat – and too easily gamed by social networks and blogs – so the sooner we move away from them the better. Anyone else seeing this change in Facebook?

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_adds_ajax_abandoning_page_views.php))*