Yesterday, many people who run a Facebook page with customized tabs suddenly experienced that their custumized tabs looked like a mess: images had either shrunken or become blurred. It turned out that the changes was due to a bug and not due to the a change in tab width that Facebook been planning to implement.

But for an organization running a campaign or if you have just launched a new project, like we have at Mindjumpers, waking up and seeing your messy page is not a nice surprise.

So to be clear on when the new changes will be effective, here’s the deal: According to Inside Facebook, a Facebook spokesperson stated that the changes will be implemented in late July. All page administrators will be given at least a two weeks notice before the changes are made.

Facebook is changing the dimensions of custom tabs from 760 pixels wide to 520 pixels wide. This change goes for all of those page tabs that are built on the Static FBML application.

If you run a page here’s what we recommend you to do:
Adapt your content on the tab to the 520 pixels wide standard – Nike Football has for instance already adapted their content to the new size.

Another, yet far more technical solution, is to build your tabs on your own application with a programmed canvas iframe instead. According to the Facebook Developers Wiki, the width for these canvas pages will remain the full 760 pixels wide.

Check out All Facebook or Inside Facebook for updates.

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Tags: 760 to 520, Anne Herngaard, custom pages, custom tabs, Facebook, Facebook Changes, tab size