Image by Robert Scoble via FriendFeed

Facebook is bringing out some major changes to their service in the next week. One of the most visible changes will be its new website design, despite only having the current one for about nine months. And with this new design, their ripping-off of lifestream aggregator FriendFeed seems to be complete.

I found out about this change thanks to famed tech blogger Robert Scoble, who posted the photo above on FriendFeed, which shows a side-by-side comparison of the current Facebook layout and the design which the company plans to roll out as early as next week. The new design seems a bit busier than the current, much maligned design, but at the same time appears much less cluttered, with the ever annoying app invite box and ads nowhere to be seen.

This new release seems to finish the theft of FriendFeed features, which began with the ability to comment on individual news feed items and most recently seen with the ability to "like" individual items in the Facebook stream. Of course, the one thing which makes FriendFeed vastly superior to Facebook hasn't made the transition, that being the lack of annoying little "apps" which populate Facebook like fleas on a dog.

The upside to all this that the "I can't understand FriendFeed" excuse will shortly be invalid. Of course, there's a downside, too: People addicted to their silly little apps will complain instead that there's no point for using FriendFeed. But then, where would Facebook turn to when they need new ideas for their site?