[caption id="attachment_2315" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Facebook's 2011 f8 Conference via Livestream"]
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About ten years ago when Scrapbooking became popular, I was envious of the people that spent dedicated time snipping and gluing to create beautiful collections of their loved ones' lives.
I did not have the patience to sit and do that. (The proof is the empty scrapbook in my hall closet with stacks of pictures waiting next to it).
By that time, many people were already on the Internet. I told a few of my friends that I could be a little more enthused if the whole scrapbooking thing could be digital -- Somehow on a disc so I could save space and not have to keep a big, klunky book. It would be great to view it all on a computer.
Back then, I didn't even know how to ask the questions or find a good source to experiment with that idea. But today, I very much wish I had!!!
Just last week I wrote a post talking about changes Facebook had already made -- And gearing up to what promised to be an exciting f8 Conference. Headlines were forecasting that Facebook would change social media forever.
f8
And...they did!
I watched and listened to the f8 Conference via Livestream. It was both amazing and entertaining (Andy Samberg led with a funny imitation of Zuck)! I tweeted my reactions and communicated with others watching around the world. (We couldn't have done that 10 years ago!)
Mark Zuckerberg first pegged the new Facebook Profile as the story of our lives. He then literally introduced it to us...
Timeline
The new Facebook Profile:
Timeline: "All your apps and stories in a new way to express who you really are."
If you haven't seen the Timeline unveiled, experience it!
Mark then used the words, "A place to call home."
Yeah, I'd say that it looks sensational, and will serve as people's online home!
It also seems like a three-dimensional, ever-changing, digital.............scrapbook. How genius!!
Up Close And Personal
Isn't that big cover picture awesome??
As one of 800 Million Facebook users, I signed right up for the beta to jump onto Timeline.
Here is an updated look at my profile:
Kinda looks like a gussied up cousin of the "old" Facebook, doesn't it?
Notice That all our friends are still there, along with our photos and Likes -- just in different places. They even added a map so we can follow where we've been in our lives when we take a peek at the previous years.
Yep - That's the timeline - The thermometer-like vertical line at the upper right. What's that at the bottom right, you ask?
That's Spotify - You can see I recently listened to Norah Jones while logged in to Facebook.
The Next Phase Of Open Graph
So, Facebook takes the next step to help us tell the story of our lives. They are allowing us to connect to anything we want, in any way we want. Sweet!
Facebook wants to help us discover more through our friends. They want to enable us to experience together.
How do we DO that? With a whole new class of apps!
The largest social network has partnered with more than a dozen entities in each category of apps:
- Media - Music, movies, tv, news, books.
- Games - Example: Words With Friends.
- Lifestyle - Anything you do in your life (cooking, gardening, etc.).
According to Zuckerberg, we'll now fill out our timeline by discovering stuff from our friends in three ways:
1) Frictionless experiences.
2) Real-time serendipity.
3) Finding patterns in our friends' activity.
Social By Design
As Mark says, "Your apps, now with friends."
This social experience will happen mainly through the Ticker. (Yes - That pesky little thing on your Home screen that distracts you from your newsfeed).
From your Home screen, you will discover that your friend is listening to a favorite recording artist, and you can opt to listen to the same song at the same time!
I've actually done it - All that is required is activating the app beforehand. Once you activate an app, all that will be needed is one simple click to enjoy. Nice!
Facebook has partnered with more than a dozen sources in each category to launch this new experience.
See Facebook Run: A Timeline New For You And Me
In Facebook's terms...
Their last update took the social graph to an open graph. They gave the social stream nouns.
So, to follow their terminology, we had nouns - With this new class of apps, we get verbs.
It sounds sort of "See Spot Run," doesn't it?
But the apps look cool - During the f8 Livestream, people went GAGA over the cooking app! And Spotify has been fun. :)
The beauty of it?
Facebook will summarize your years as you add important events and achievements. Interestingly enough, as the details are summarized over time, the year pages look a tad like infographics.
So, "Timeline - The story of who we are."
Your new Facebook Timeline goes live beginning on September 29, 2011. Are you ready?
What are you looking forward to DOING with this new Facebook?
What do you think will come next?
24 Replies
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I am a big fan of FB timeline. It helps me to systemize all my pictures and albums it just puts everything in order. Great thing!
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Alex, Wow – so nice to see you are a big fan of Facebook Timeline! I’ve not heard others say they are using it to systemize their photos and/or albums, so that is great to know. Thank you for reading, and sharing your thoughts, ~Keri
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Brilliant concept. Let’s hope FB users are more receptive than to it than the ticker!
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Thank you!
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nic 1……
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Thanks for reading, and for your comment!
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Big thanks Keri for sharing. I’m (still) not sure about Timeline. I’m trying to figure it out – what added value it brings to social media table? I agree with Laurinda that Timeline is not as relevant, it’s just another way to present content we already presenting on Facebook. “Big brother” is already here, there are too many connections between social media users. I think that there is not much we can “hide” about our lives any more. Everything is there – online 🙂 (btw.: I haven’t set -yet – my timeline. Am I the only one?)
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@twitter-54269479:disqus , Timeline will allow Facebook to personalize information for you. It will be intuitive based on the way you act and react on Facebook. You can adjust your settings to allow people to see things….or not. So, I think Timeline allows us a place to call “home” and a way to tell our story for people we want to share it with. Facebook will be rolling the Timeline out in stages. But, you can get it now if you want. Have you done a search for the instructions? Techcrunch had a good set, I believe. Looking forward to seeing your Timeline if you’ll let me… 😉 ~Keri
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Great post Keri. I am really curious to see how this new profile is going to be liked by the masses. I think the 1984 ‘big brother feel’ will creep some people out at first. Also, I think the kids who have grown up using facebook.. or their parents recording their lives since they were born.. will have the biggest impact in terms of the overall timeline. but for us older geeks… the timeline is not as relevant. its the day to day interaction… making it easy and pretty that matters… … time will tell…
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@LaurindaShaver:disqus , Thank you for sharing your perspective! I believe you are correct – The younger generations will have an easier time, and will get a bit more from it. A confession: I played around with inputting information onto my timeline – Being born, graduation, starting my business — the Life Events. It was a bit overwhelming, because I wasn’t on Facebook then….so it was all manual creation. As time goes by, the way years are summarized is interesting. A bit like infographics we see. Time will tell. For now, I’m wondering how “easy and pretty” this whole slew of changes seems to our non-geek friends, eh? 🙂 ~Keri
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What a great summary of the recent Facebook pages! Thank you for making it so clear. By the way, I love that picture of you looking up. I am so looking forward to seeing how people will unleash their creativity using this new billboard. I can’t wait to play with mine!
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@snouraini:disqus , You are too kind – Thank you for your compliments! The new billboard will indeed be fun. I’ve been sneaky enough to learn the new dimensions and feel it is a whole new opportunity to paint the Facebook world. Though I do like your ideas on highlighting the person behind a company on personal profiles. So, once Business Timelines are rolled out, Facebook will be soooo groovy! Have fun playing, Sherry… ~Keri
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Hi Keri thanks for going into depth about the Facebook timeline and how it looks, I always think that posts with images always get the message across so much better. I am looking forward to the new look. Never tried scrap booking but I know what you mean about being patient.
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@markcoruk:disqus , Lets see who can hold out on Scrapbooking the longest. (I bet I lose). 🙂 While I’m not the best at photos & video, I’m more and more trying to use it, as those mediums are effective, as you say. When I see posts with images, I too appreciate it. Stay tuned for more on Facebook… ~Keri
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I quit Facebook over bringing back Beacon in this form. It is a wolf in sheeps clothing. I don’t want my life shared this way. Most people do not. Open Graph has been a huge failure. So few people click Like off Facebook when rounded the number is zero. And with the time spent per user per day on facebook down 40% since April 2010 (this is factual data btw from their stats!) and with the insane IPO pressue and G+ and now Diaspora coming into play they are freaking. So they came up with a slick uber exploitation tool and half the people are guppies being fed and half are running scared.
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@howieatskypulsemedia:disqus , Thank you for taking a few minutes to share your thoughts. While I do not have confirmation of the stats you posted above, I have no doubt that Facebook was lagging. At the same time, there are still pockets of populations that are exclusively on Facebook, and even feel challenged by it. It is possible to control Facebook’s settings to be comfortable. That will take education from social media professionals spreading word to the masses, but it is possible. Not to discount what you are saying – if we are not smart, Facebook is the sneaky fox on this one. The big blue will have their time in the spotlight, but smart people are also hopping onto Google+ — You’ll notice I have done a post about it too. Hopefully we can connect on other networks. Would be enthused to circle-up on Google+: http://gplus.to/kerijaehnig. ~Keri
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Hi Keri, excellent post! I was happy to share this on IB, Twitter and our Facebook fan page. Here it is, http://bit.ly/nejG8g keep producing great content, I really enjoy your insight, it is much appreciated.
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@internetbillboards:disqus , Thank you for your kind words, and for sharing on Internet Billboards! I’ve shared via Twitter (you should see tweets in your stream over the next 24 hours), Facebook, and LinkedIn. It was so amazing to see your curation of my work — Like seeing my name in lights!! I’m so appreciative of your time to visit my site, read the post, and feature it on IB. Facebook is going to take us for quite a ride — This won’t be my last post about the big blue… Thanks again, ~Keri
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Nice job with this post, Keri. I like how you took Mark Zuckerberg’s words and broke them down to explain them to the average person (i.e. not social media geeks like us). I happen to agree that this is going to be a good change… although I’m quite curious where they’ll going with business profiles.
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@twitter-186576867:disqus , Thank you for your comment! Facebook is changing a lot at one time. My intentions were to provide something that would help the average business owner. If I were not in social media, I’d be scrambling around with a huge purple question mark floating above my head! Especially when the tabs change over to require SSL certificates. I know that there are page admins out there that will not be up on that little detail. I do have one “grin and bear it” post planned – with a bit of video exploration. Hope to publish tomorrow morning. 🙂 Geeks…are we ready? ~Keri
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Yet, another thing we have in common Keri…scrapbooking….NOT! I too, tried this craft. I had many supplies that I’ve sold on eBay years ago. Imagine my husband’s relief when he suddenly gained access in one of the rooms in our basement. I’m more of a digital/techie kind of girl so I’m all about the new “Timeline” Facebook has in store for us. I’ve been playing with it and I can’t wait to publish my profile page. And I love how all my friends and relatives, near and far, can have access to this all at once versus having to take out those clunky scrapbooks that can only be viewed by few and you need to ask for a security deposit just to make sure you get it back. Thanks for writing this article. Jocelyn
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@twitter-229938197:disqus , I must confess… I still have some photos and the scrapbook, along with a few “groovy making” supplies waiting on me. I haven’t given up on the possibility that I will make my daughter a scrapbook for her graduation. It’s coming up in June, so I really need to jump off the fence and commit…or not. Lets see what happens when it gets cold outside… 😉 My timeline is published, but far from perfect. There are still events and photos I want to add. That’s another nifty thing about this Timeline. We can add and subtract as we want! That hugs space for a banner image is like waiting for Santa to come for me. First, I need to get through fixing SSL certificates on Facebook Tabs, then I can get digitally creative with that. Are you there too? ~Keri
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