Facebook’s redesign has significantly altered the look and feel of the mini-feed. Much of the change is focused on differentiation between types of feed activities (i.e. Photos, Posted Items, etc), as well as a much more pronounced emphasis on Status Updates.
Via AllFacebook:
It’s clear that statuses have become one of the most important components of Facebook and many have called it a Twitter killer. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an increasing emphasis on statuses as Facebook moves forward. One interesting component about this new layout is how the statuses are updated instantaneously whereas the main news feed content is only updated periodically.
This contrasts FriendFeed where every load of the page presents new data among your friends as the site is updated in real-time. Facebook has tried to automatically filter information for users to try to select the most relevant information. It will be interesting to see if Facebook ever shifts this strategy to display more information.
This is a simple change but it most definitely highlights the importance of statuses in Facebook.