Facebook’s more than 800 million members will now be able to convert their profiles to the new Timeline design.
Now, maybe I’m just more tech savvy than some of the other 800 million people using Facebook, but I’ve had the Timeline for months now. The way to get it early was all over the Internet. Get with the program.
Facebook announced Timeline in September, and now it’s finally available worldwide to those who don’t already have it. The feature replaces current user profiles and dramatically overhauls how information is shared on the service. Which to Facebook users equals the end of life as we know it.
“It’s a way to tell all the important stories from your life on a single page,” Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said when he announced the new feature at his company’s F8 Conference.
Basically, Timeline shows all the updates a person has added to Facebook since they joined the site. It also follows the social network’s desire to provide users with a single place to showcase what has happened in their lives over the years.
It’s kind of creepy actually. I was a junior in high school when I just got access to Facebook. I really did not want to see who posted on my Wall and the pointless things I was saying when I was a teenager. Plus, it’s weird that Facebook stores all of that information and wants to know every thing about your life including when you got your driver’s license, your prom and all the other “important” life events one might have as a teenager or adult.
Facebook said this morning that people can head over to its Timeline information page and turn the feature on. Upon doing so, they will have seven days to review their timelines and decide whether certain photos or wall posts shared on the site over the years should be shared or kept hidden from view. Thank god for this feature. I’m sure there are some of us who want our less than flattering statuses and photos hidden year later.
Personally, I really dig the Timeline. It definitely gives Facebook and facelift after the stuffy design they’ve been rocking for years. My favorite feature is the very large main picture on the top of the profile. I’ve customized mine with some inkblots and an old timey pen, while others have posted pictures of pets or loved ones. You can change it whenever you want, and it’s way classier the MySpace’s old sparkly-pathetic-pseudo creative-emo-annoyingly artsy background feature (if you can even remember that far back).
But of course, any change to Facebook causes a World War III-esque uprising of haters who liked the old Facebook better. Get over it, kids. This is the digital age. The “Old Facebook” will be the Facebook we have now in about a year, so get used to it.
