The Mark Bao Weblog.

Recently, Facebook released a new photo browser that doesn’t require loading and refreshing of a page to go to the next image. (Go to any photo page to try this out.) It’s essentially powered by ajax, almost all of the page, including loading comments (though adding comments is not ajax yet.) It’s somewhat indicative that Facebook isn’t going corporate — yet.

By not loading a new page and replacing current contents of the page using ajax improves user experience. However, with the percentage of pages that are just interacting with photos, Facebook is losing a large amount of ad impressions and thus losing revenue while making ux more enjoyable.

This is similar to Google’s refusal to remove the I’m Feeling Lucky button, which by itself costs Google $110 million a year (listen).

SERGEY BRIN:The reason it’s called “I’m Feeling Lucky,” is of course that’s a pretty damn ambitious goal. I mean to get the exact right one thing without even giving you a list of choices, and so you have to feel a little bit lucky if you’re going to try that with one go.

TOM CHAVEZ: Basically you have $110 million of revenue loss per year associated with that button.

MARISA MAYER: You know Larry and Sergey had the view, and I certainly share it, that it’s possible just to become too dry, too corporate, too much about making money. And you know what I think is really delightful about Google and about the “I’m Feeling Lucky,” is that they remind you that the people here have personality and that they have interests and that there is real people.