Imagine what happened when I saw Facebook’s new Timeline feature. I’m still freaking out. I think it is annoying and unnecessary. Here’s why.

I Don’t Need It

One of the most interesting things to watch is what happens when a business embarks on a project that isn’t built with the customer (or user) in mind. Usually the company in question tries to justify it by making grand statements about how the new feature will enhance the life of its customers.

Take it away, Mr. Zuckerberg.

“Timeline is the story of your life.”

That’s great! I mean, wait. What? I thought this was Facebook. The place I go to check up on my friends and see who is dating who and sometimes check up on people I knew in high school. Now Facebook is the story of my life?

“All your stories. All your apps. In a new way to express who you are.”

Huh? I guess Facebook is about expression, in the same way as any other form of communication is about expression. But I don’t have any stories on Facebook. I don’t use many apps. And the apps I use certainly aren’t meant to be an expression of who I am.

“Here are all the years of my life, right here.” (made in reference to his timeline).

Uh-oh. I wish I could see the advertising data they’ll take from that. Which is, let’s face it, the most important feature of Timeline.

Look, seeing people’s lives throughout time is kind of nifty. But is it why I’m on Facebook? No. I don’t want this to be my profile. It doesn’t do anything for me. Do. Not. Want.

I Don’t Like The Dueling Walls

Here’s my biggest design issue with Timeline.

Ever since I was a kid I’ve been taught, like almost everyone else in the western world, that items to be read are scanned from left to right and from top to bottom.

Timeline starts out with one big column that has a lot of information, and that’s fine. But below that are two columns of information that at first seem to be spat out almost at random. Soon you’ll realize that there are very small arrows on each area of information pointing to a dot on the timeline, and you’re supposed to parse information by jumping box to box in a sort of diagonal zig-zag pattern. Also, the two upper most boxes of information on the right side – well, they’re not actually part of the timeline. The designers just couldn’t figure out where else they could put them.

What I find strangest about this is the fact that it’s entirely unnecessary. A list of single items can be chronological. Wall posts are already organized in that way, more or less. The only reason for this annoying two-column format, so far as I can tell, is so that you can see it’s a timeline. Ooooooh. Fancy.

Fortunately, some intrepid developers are already making extensions that reformat the page so that there is just one column. But really – Facebook? What are you thinking?

I Don’t Like The Privacy Concerns

Timeline is yet again asking users to put in more information about themselves. Ostensibly it helps users express themselves – but it certainly doesn’t hurt Facebook’s bottom line. In doing so, the company is also asking people to provide more information to strangers and friends. That is information users may not want to have visible.

Yes, there are tools that can be used to make sure information remains private. There are ways to remove content. The burden of privacy is, however, consistently placed on the user. In the eyes of Facebook, there doesn’t seem to be any assumption of privacy. It’s all out there – unless you say otherwise.

I’m not sure why we should trust Facebook, either. They’re a company that is on the verge of an IPO (it may have happened by the time you read this) and despite the success of the site, they are as a business still young and still unproven. What happens when someone else is in charge? What happens if the IPO flops and Facebook’s investors start asking for them to make big bucks, no matter what? The pressure for profit has time and time again caused companies to take actions that were unsafe, immoral and sometimes illegal. We shouldn’t expect Facebook to be any different.

I Don’t Have A Choice

Timeline is out there.  You may have already noticed it lurking on the pages of friends. Perhaps you’ve been taken by it already. But even if you run – you can’t hide. Timeline is coming, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Why? Why can’t I stop it?

That’s a hypothetical question, of course. I know why. It’s because Timeline is designed from the ground up as a way to make Facebook money. Increased app integration and increased data collection translates to more opportunities for profit. Making it optional doesn’t make sense – at least not to the accounting department.

I get that, but it doesn’t make the change any easier for me.

Conclusion

The new Timeline feature may be what turns me off from Facebook. Though I have a Google+ account, I don’t use it as my primary social networking tool. That may soon change.

What say you? Am I off the reservation, or are you feeling the pain of change as well? Let us know in the comments.

What makes this update something special is that it is one of the first applications that allow users to plug things into the past on their Facebook Timeline. For example, if you had a photo of you as a baby from 1986, you could scan it into ShoeBox and post it, and it would show on your Timeline as occurring in 1986. Normally, the picture would show as the date you uploaded it, which breaks the Timeline feel and makes it a non accurate representation of your life.

In addition to going back in time, this update also allows you to tag photos from the application. They also elected to use Facebook’s Photos API, which forces users to manually add the date to pictures, but allows the photos to be posted in a bigger, more beautiful format.

This is an example of what makes Timeline cool. It shows that when done right, an app that works with Timeline can really enhance the users social experience, and not just say what movie you want to see or what song you just listened to. I hope other developers take a cue from ShoeBox and make a strong creative use of the Timeline.

iTunes Link

Source: Techcrunch

New timeline applications that let you showcase your activities can be found in a Facebook directory, but there’s a few privacy things you should know before you get started. Start by checking your Facebook timeline privacy settings and other privacy controls generally. Then when you add applications, ensure you know exactly who can see your activities and where those activities will be seen online by using the following guide.

1. Use Friends Lists To Filter Which Timeline Apps People See

Friends lists in Facebook are the default way by which you can manage your privacy and filter the information people see about you. At MakeUseOf we’ve gone into great detail on many occasion as to how and why you should create Friends lists, in particular for your privacy using the timeline. Check out the Facebook Privacy Guide for a more comprehensive overview.

An example of why this is important could be a jogging application such as Nike or a travel site like TripAdvisor. Which of your Facebook friends should know your favourite daily jogging routes? Which friends should know when you’re away from your home for travel? Surely not all of them! Don’t compromise your physical safety with a timeline application accidentally. Would you be embarrassed if your workmates saw which films you watch? Filter them out.

2. You Give Application Approval Once Only

When you click on the application from the Facebook timeline application directory, you’ll often be taken to the application website and asked to log in. Then you’re directed to the application approval page from there.

You only need to approve the application once to ensure your information is shared in many different places. This makes it easy to set up, but it might come as a surprise to some. If you already use the application, you’ll need to re-approve use to enable the timeline application, but the custom sharing settings you’ve previously set for that application will be maintained.

3. Know That Your Activity Is Shared Internet-Wide

So, you’ve approved the application for Company X. Now your activity can be seen in your Timeline Application section, in the News feed and in the ticker. It can also be seen on Company X’s website by default because you’ve allowed that access too.

4. You Can Change Settings Using Your Activity Log

If you need to change your privacy settings for any application it can be done using the application settings or via the timeline’s activity log.

5. Every Song/Movie/Book/Recipe Is shared

These applications will share every little thing you do, unless you can specify privacy options with the application itself. If you’re listening to music on Spotify all day, those tracks will show up individually in the ticker and in a bundle on the news feed and your timeline. That’s a lot of ticker updates (not that many people mind)!

And what if you occasionally listen to or watch something a little embarrassing in a live streaming application like Hulu or Spotify? Make sure you’ve enabled some sort of private mode first or it will be seen by everyone on Facebook who can view that application. If it’s a possibility, maybe consider protecting yourself against this by limiting whoever can see that application in the first place to just close friends. Your friends might still laugh at you down the pub, but at least you won’t break your grandmother’s heart or lose your job.

What worries you about Facebook’s timeline application privacy? Have you seen teenagers or non-savvy types accidentally exposing themselves to risk? What did they do?

Sure, a lot of you are artistic as it is, and were designing their own beautiful websites long before Facebook came around, but for many people, Facebook is their official face on the web, and as such they try to make it as appealing and unique as possible. Some people even go out of their way to design something special, just for that huge central Timeline photo. But what if you’re not a designer? That’s what services like CoverCanvas are for.

CoverCanvas

CoverCanvas is a very simple web app which helps you create some interesting Facebook timeline covers which make your Facebook profile stand out. It uses pre-made designs and your profile pictures from Facebook. It’s basically a Facebook app, and requires authorization and access to your Facebook account, like any other app.

What it doesn’t require is any sort of sign up or setting up process. Simply click on “Get Started” and you’re on your way!

Designing A Cover

After you authorize the app to access your Facebook account, it will automatically pull all your profile pictures to use in creating covers. Unfortunately, you can’t use any of your other photos with the apps, only your profile pictures, so we’ll have to make do with these.

First, you get to choose what kind of cover you want to create. Under Custom Covers, you’ll find Photos And Name, Your Name and Your Photos. With these you can create a cover which includes either some photos and your name, only your name on a unique design or only your photos. For each one of these options, there are numerous different designs to choose from, which you can browse using the top bar.

Like I said, there are lots of designs to choose from here, and you can create covers with all kinds of different feels to them. Here is an example for a Photos and Name cover I created.

This is one of the “photos only” covers I created. There are many different designs here too.

And this is one of the “name only” designs you can create. As you can see, not all of them are that serious.

If you’d like to create something different, and not use your profile pictures, you can choose from the wide array of Static Covers. These are divided into categories such as Art, Love, Food and Drink, Movies, Superheroes and Cars. Most categories are also divided into sub-categories, which helps you zoom in on what you’re really interested in. Here is a food themed cover I created.

You can also create something with a darker feel, if you prefer. The number of options is not huge, but it should definitely appeal to a wide variety of different tastes.

Since most of us have a lot of profile pictures, you may want to see different designs with different pictures. You can’t tell CoverCanvas which photos to use, but you can click on “Remix Photos” again and again, and see the different designs with different photos each time.

When you’re satisfied with a design, click on “Make My Cover”. This will upload your new cover to Facebook and will automatically transfer you to your profile page where you can put the new cover to use.

Placing Your New Facebook Timeline Cover On Your Profile

So now you’ve been redirected to your profile page on Facebook, and you want to use your new cover. How do you do it? If you don’t already have a cover, you’ll see a “Add a Cover” button where the cover goes. If you already have a cover, the button will read “Change Cover”. Click the button, and from the dropdown menu choose “Choose from Photos”.

CoverCanvas will create a special album for you, where it will store all the covers you create, but the most recent covers will be available through Recent Uploads, without having to access any album.

If you can’t find the design you want, click on “View Albums” and choose the CoverCanvas album. You will find your design there.

You can now preview what the new design will look like on your page. Facebook will offer the option to drag the image around, but since the design was made specifically for this area, it’s already in its exact size and there’s nothing to move around. If you like it, click on “Save Changes”.

And there you have it. A unique, personal design for your Timeline profile, that people are just that much more likely to remember.

Note that CoverCanvas, like many other apps, will post a status update for you when you upload a new canvas through the service. The post includes the new canvas (so don’t upload ones you’re not sure you want people to see) and a link to the website. It looks like this.

Bottom Line

All in all, CoverCanvas is a great way to personalize your new Facebook Timeline profile. You can create many different designs, and switch them around whenever you feel like it. That way, you’ll never get bored with your cover, even if you use the same pictures over and over again.

Do you know of some more services which help you create your own customized design for Timeline? Did you create a cool design with CoverCanvas? Share in the comments!

At launch, Facebook has apps available for all kinds of interests. They have apps for travelers, movie watchers, foodies and many more. Of course, these are just the launch apps and Facebook plans to add many more as time goes on. Chances are, if there is something you enjoy, Facebook will have a Timeline app that can handle it.

Adding an app is as simple as visiting the Timeline apps page and adding it to your profile. Your friends will see your activity from the app in their news ticker, on your profile and possibly in their news feed. It makes it easy to share whatever hobbies you enjoy.

Popular services such as Rhapsody, Spotify, GoGoBot and LivingSocial are available. Check out the Timeline apps page for a complete listing of apps.

Let us know in the comments which apps you enjoy, or how you feel about Timeline. Do you think Facebook is going too far with all these extras? We would love to hear your opinion!

Source: The Facebook Blog

Timeline has been designed from the ground up to enable Facebook users to tell a story, complete with a cover page, featured stories and events. Once the service has been activated, users have a week-long grace period during which they can get their Timelines into shape, removing unwanted stories and highlighting happier times.

As well as a new way of browsing the site, Timeline also introduces new social applications which can be integrated into profiles. Examples include a Netflix app which lists recently watched movies, RunKeeper which broadcasts GPS work-out information and Spotify for highlighting favourite or last-played tracks.

Facebook Timeline is also accessible via mobile web at m.facebook.com and via the official Facebook for Android app. The service will be coming to iOS soon, but as yet no date has been given.

In order to activate the new Timeline right now, head over to the signup page and click Get Timeline. For privacy advice when it comes to upgrading to the new profile check out out this article.

Have you tried Facebook Timeline? What do you think? Decided against it? Tell us why in the comments, below.

Now, while the Facebook timeline looks fantastic, there are a few privacy concerns worth keeping in mind. For most people, certain things will need adjusting before you can be completely sure that your posts aren’t being exposed to the public unintentionally. We’ll take you through some of the major things you should check.

Note that even if you have chosen to use the new timeline it still needs to be published in order to be seen publicly. You can do this yourself after enabling the timeline, or Facebook will do it for you eventually. This gives you a chance to test your privacy settings before they’re live.

1. Testing Your Settings

There’s so many aspects of Facebook that can be controlled with different privacy settings that it can get a little bit confusing. Remember though, that at any time you can check how your Facebook profile looks to any person you are friends with. Simply go to your profile and click on the cog-like edit icon and choose “View as…” to choose a person to view the profile as.

If you’ve been setting your privacy settings by using custom filters, a good idea would be to check a family member, a colleague, a good friend and an acquaintance. This will give you an idea how these different types of people can see your profile. Check your profile like this before and after checking the following settings.

2. Limit Your Past & Future Default Post Settings

There is a way to limit the audience for past posts easily. If you think it’s possible you made some embarrassing public posts when you first joined Facebook and hadn’t yet friended your boss, this is the tool for you. Go to Home > Privacy Settings and find the section for “Limit the Audience for Past Posts“, clicking on the “Manage Past Post Visibility” link. Follow the prompts and confirmation to limit all of your “More than Friends” posts from your past to just your friends.

This will include public posts and friends of friends, so it should catch all those unexpected posts. There’s no way to reverse it with one click, so make sure it’s what you really want to do.

Also keep in mind that this setting is entirely different from future posts you make. If you want to limit default privacy for future posts, there’s a simple choice to make on your privacy settings page.

3. Manually Tweak Individual Items On Your Page

This is the tool for you if you’re fairly sure your privacy settings are what you want. For instance, if you’ve already viewed your profile as your boss and there’s just a few things you want to get rid of or feature on your profile.

Head to the box containing the post you want to feature or delete. You may realise in hindsight that the update was a little silly, or it might be an update that you want everyone to know the second they see your profile. The feature/hide buttons are right next to each other in the top right of every update.

4. Controlling Who Sees Things Others Post On Your Timeline

If you had previously controlled which of your friends can view posts on your wall, this setting will have migrated to cover your timeline. Sadly, Facebook won’t let you control which of your friends can post to your wall/timeline. It’s either all of your friends or just yourself. So, you need to instead control who can view what your friends write.

Head to Home > Privacy Settings > How You Connect and click on the control for “Who can see posts by others on your timeline?” to set things up properly. This is best controlled using custom friends lists to both nominate who can see the posts and who can never see the posts your friends make. Just think, your high school friends, relatives, boss and current friends can all write on your wall/timeline. Who do you want to see those messages? Who do you NOT want to see them?

5. Check The Privacy Of Your Contact Information

Now’s a great time to check just how public each bit of your profile information is. Go to your profile and click on “Update Info” to see your work history, education, relationships, contact details and other details. Each piece of information can be limited to friends, custom friend groups or just yourself. Who should know where you live? Your phone number? Edit the section, then click on the icon to the right of any piece of information in order to change who can see it.

Learn More About Facebook Privacy

If you’re keen to learn more about Facebook privacy in general (especially how to use custom friend lists to filter your privacy settings), then check out the Unofficial Facebook Privacy Guide.

Facebook wants you to use your Timeline profile to tell the story of your life, from today, to the day you joined Facebook, to your childhood, and up until your birth.  Your new profile will boast a huge cover picture, smaller boxes for things like friends, photos, apps and more (you get to choose which are featured), and of course, the timeline.

In the timeline you will be reunited with all your Facebook updates from the day you joined Facebook. This also includes a map of all the geotags you may have added to your posts. This might be cool for some people, but some may be embarrassed about old posts, and wish to hide or delete them. Facebook’s new profile has relatively easy-to-use privacy settings with which users can configure exactly what should appear on their timeline.

For example, if you want to hide a certain activity from your timeline, just view the activity, click the small arrow on the right and choose to hide the activity from the timeline.

You can also add any activity to the timeline, from breaking bones to getting a license, or anything else you want to share.

Time will tell if users will love and adopt this drastic change to Facebook’s profile. What do you think? Is this a good or bad change? What is your experience with it so far?

Source: cnet

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.