Yesterday Facebook announced a host of new features in what was described by industry observers as the biggest shakeup in Facebook’s history.  Most of these changes are obviously due to the emerging and growing threat from Google Plus, and one of the features that Mark Zuckerberg introduced was the radical redesign of the profile page.  It’s called the “timeline” and it could prove to be the most controversial change of them all.

Not everyone has the timeline design yet and you may have to wait up to several weeks for it.  However, if you’re curious about how it looks on your profile and you want to try it out now, then here is how to do it.

Please note however that your new timeline page will only be viewable to those who also have the timeline design page.  Those who still have the old page design will continue to see your old page design until the timeline feature goes mainstream for everyone.

Step One – Authorise Facebook Developer To Access Your Account

The first step is to sign up as a Facebook developer. This involves enabling and authorising Facebook Developer to access your Facebook account.  Just go here and click “allow“.

Create A New App

The next step is to create a new app.  Don’t panic, you’re not actually going to create one.  On this page, in the top right hand corner are two buttons – “edit app” and “create new app“.  Click “create new app“.

This is the box that will come up next.  Simply put whatever you want into both boxes.  It doesn’t matter, as long as someone else hasn’t reserved the name.  It should also be at least 7 characters long.  As you can see, I put “coolmuoapp“which was the first thing that popped into my head.  Now click “continue“.

Clear The Captcha

Now you have to prove you’re human and not an automated bot.  Enter the captcha and hit “submit“.

Define An Action

OK, you’re almost finished.  In this final screen, the only thing you need to concern yourself with is the “Open Graph” link in the top left hand corner of the page.  Click on that and you will get this :

All you have to do is choose an action in the first text field and choose an object in the second text field.  So I chose “watch” in the first text field and “movie” in the second.  Now press “get started“.

After processing that, Facebook will flip back to the Open Graph page (you may even get an error message) but you can now ignore all of that and head towards your Facebook profile.  Within a minute or two, you should receive an invitation to try out the timeline profile.  Click on that and you are in.  Here’s mine :

At the top, where I have chosen to upload a Highland cow (one of my favourite animals) is the area known as the “cover”.  This is where you can upload your own photo and really personalise your page.  You can let your imagination go completely riot and choose something that reflects your personality and who you are.

On the whole, the timeline profile is an interesting development but it is a radical departure from what the profile used to be like, so I am sure there will be lots of people who will vehemently hate the design.  But I would say give it a chance. 

As the name “timeline” implies, you can move the slider back over every year you have had the Facebook profile and see all your old status messages.  I found it fascinating seeing what I posted years ago and laughing at some of the bad jokes that I posted (and some of the good ones too).

Let us know in the comments if you have any problems getting the timeline page, and also let us know if you either like or hate the new design.