Facebook has begun rolling out its much anticipated new timeline layout worldwide, offering a new, deeper profile which allows users to ‘fill in’ more of their life pre-Facebook.
Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg described timeline as lettting you ‘tell the whole story of your life on a single page’.
Timeline was released to developers in September, and more than one million people signed up for the beta.
At present, the ‘new look’ is voluntary – but a company spokesperson said it will become compulsory in ‘a few weeks’.
Once available, users can chart their entire Facebook history via Timeline, from their first friend to the most recent status update.
The new look is much more ‘picture-heavy’; friends become big pictures, and the site also posts much larger versions of pictures users have taken, shared or been tagged in.
Timeline will also be open to app developers, so that the information can be used to supercharge apps such as music-sharing application Spotify.
The social network first rolled out Timeline in New Zealand last week in order to monitor speed and performance in an English-speaking country.
That testing apparently went well, and the feature is now available around the globe.
“Timeline gives you an easy way to rediscover the things you shared, and collect your most important moments,” Paul McDonald an engineering manager on the Timeline team, said in a blog post. “It also lets you share new experiences, like the music you listen to or the miles you run.”
Users will get a seven-day review period before their Timeline is posted to the Web, though it can be published earlier, too.
Timeline will replace users’ existing profiles, but stories and photos from that profile will be ported to Timeline.
Users can opt to hide or feature certain stories. To feature something, users need to mouse over the story and click the star to expand it to two columns. The pencil icon will also let users hide, delete, or edit a post.
Posts will include a privacy drop-down menu that lets users select who sees their information: public, friends, only me, or custom.
Timeline adds a new, private feature known as Activity Log, which allows users to review all their posts and activity. Users can also adjust privacy settings via a drop-down menu that lets them decide if an item should be included in Timeline.
The feature is also available on Android phones and via m.facebook.com.
The announcement comes a week after a reporting glitch accidentally exposed Facebook users’ private photos—including those belonging to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Last month, meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with Facebook that requires the social network to be more transparent about its privacy policies and submit to regular audits.
According to the FTC, Facebook “deceived customers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public.”
https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline
