Over the next few weeks, Facebook will be offering you the option of replacing your Profile with what it’s calling Timeline, which is based on the scenario that, up until this now, a user’s profile mostly consisted of only the most recent updates. A quick factoid: Only 1% of the updates, links and stories you’ve shared on Facebook is visible on your profile (That means that the other 99% o you shared basically vanished from view on Facebook.) This new Timeline view of your profile enables users to highlight more updates or stories from their past, in an organized fashion.
You can take a peek at the new Facebook Timeline here: facebook.com/about/timeline
Some of the features of the new Timeline Profile Layout:
- Asthetically more appealing. Timeline is wider and much more visually appealing than the old profile view.
- Organized. Although users ultimately have complete control over what gets shown in their timeline, Facebook algorithms automatically populates your profile with grouped/organized content.
- Privacy. You can access a private activity log of your Facebook historical activity to choose stories to add to their timeline, or not.
- No disappearing ink J (Older updates don’t vanish as new content is added like they used to.
- Meant to resemble a scrapbook, only online.
- The Apps are back! And better than ever—it’s easier for your friends to see and easier for you to add to your profile/timeline..
According to Facebook, Timeline is currently in beta and won’t be rolled out to users for another few weeks.
The other big change Facebook announced today was the New Open Graph
Facebook’s announcement of the New Open Graphing will allow users to more easily use, share and display their favorite apps. A neat feature is that it will even enable users to instantly join in on others’ activity as they see stories displayed in their News Feed or Ticker. That means that you can instantly play the music your friends are currently listening to or jump in and watch the TV show they’re viewing, with Facebook with the recent integration of Hulu and Netflix options into Facebook.
What does this mean for your privacy? It definitely means that more data, statistics and trends could be eventually released from Timeline and Open Graph via an API, which could give marketers a lot of potentially useful data and insights that will influence advertising and marketing trends.
So, now that we’re just getting used to a new look to the News Feed over the next few weeks, expect more changes.
Personally, I think it’ll be neat, but I like shiny new things…
