Yeah, I'm not a fan. Why fix what isn't broken? Oh, wait, it's Facebook. And of course I'll join everyone else in complaining about it on Facebook. You win, Mark Zuckerberg. Anyway, in case you haven't heard, Facebook's design will change to the Timeline format soon. Everyone was given seven days to organize their Timeline before their friends see it. After that..well, I'm not sure what happens. Does Facebook change it for you? In a couple weeks the Timeline will be the standard Facebook layout.
Basically it makes your Facebook page into a personal scrapbook of your life story for everyone to see. So if there's anything you don't want people to see, get to deleting stuff ASAP. The thing that is making everyone freak out is that FACEBOOK FORGETS NOTHING. Remember that drunken status update you made about loving late-night burritos and tequila back in 2006? Well, it'll be on your Timeline for your friends, mom and coworkers to see. Which is a major problem for anyone who, say, signed up with Facebook back when they were in college and are now a responsible adult with a job and grown-up status updates about their dog and how great Claire Danes was on Homeland last night. Don't want to relive a certain time period on Facebook? Too bad. It'll be on your Timeline unless you do something about it. All your love-y dovey status updates about exes, your awkward photos you forgot to untag...it'll all be there. What amuses me is that in the layout, it's like nothing is all that important in your life before Facebook came along in 2005.
And, yes, the layout is confusing to say the least. Finding old stuff is easy enough, but if you go to a friend's page, it's a mess of status updates and their friends' activity and it's really hard to look at anything new or even tell when and where someone posted something on your page. If nothing else, it's yet another reminder that while we think we're sending our Tweets and status updates and what not out into the Web never to be seen again, they're actually always there to come back and haunt us.
Well, I guess the cover banner is kind of cool. Here are some geeky banners. Also, apparently there was way to see who defriended you, but Facebook did away with that feature. So you're spared that awkwardness until the next inevitable update.
What do you think of Facebook Timeline? Would you rather not be forced to relive certain time periods everytime you log in?
Want to bet they mess up the privacy settings again too?
It annoys me to no end that they don't tell you when they change privacy settings!!!
An the face recognition stuff is freaky!
I've taken all but three photo's off my account.
Feeling compelled to do so on a social networking site, I don't know, kind of defeats the purpose.
*sighs*
I suppose I'd better log back on to see what else I have to delete!
Meh. I'm ok with it.. I've been with Facebook since the beginning and there have been all sorts of changes. Everyone complains and then a month later everyone is fine. Props to Facebook for keeping themselves relevant in an ever changing world.
Banner is a cool feature but overall, the timeline format is too much like old school My Space on an acid trip. (what's next? animated swirly doodles in the background and blinking ads?)
As a design professional, with experience in graphics, I'm perhaps more frustrated than some, as it's not a streamlined, clean display, but chock full of haphazard alignments, mixes of fonts and limited information heirarchy.
I agree the previous layout was boring, but a radical change like this isn't as intuitive as say, Steve Jobs would have done.
It just kind of looks like facebook threw up on your monitor...
I hate timeline as much as i did to my math teacher :(