This post was originally written by Kerry Sugrue, former Social Media Specialist at Apartments.com.
They have been talking about it for a while, but Facebook Timeline is officially launching. This new view for profiles takes your life and puts it into; you guessed it, a timeline layout. There are a lot of people asking why all the changes and can’t Facebook leave good enough alone? It’s about providing a more user-friendly experience, said Kate Aronowitz, director of user experience and design for Facebook, in an interview yesterday morning. Using the right hand control, users can quickly scroll through events, friends, photos, wall posts and more from any year in their life. Although Facebook wasn’t around in 1970 (come to think of it, Zuckerberg wasn’t even around then), users can upload photos from that year to truly create a timeline of their life.
Timeline is still in its opt-in phase, but all users will be transitioned over soon. I enabled it a few months ago to play with the usability and I really do like it. I easily found wall posts from my college roommates that I had completely forgotten about. Sure, I could have found these with my wall today, but the key word is easily. These posts and other content are called Stories in Timeline. You can star your favorites to highlight them and hide others you don’t want people to see.
Don’t be nervous about setting up Timeline. Facebook is giving opt-in users a seven day grace period between setting it up and pushing it live to your friends. Take some time to find a good Cover photo, which is everyone’s introduction to your profile (mine is from when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup) and get started. For more information and to enable your Timeline, visit Facebook.com/Timeline.
