Facebook Timeline Becomes Mandatory for All Users

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Laura Christianson

Say goodbye to the Facebook Wall as you know it. Your personal Facebook profile is going to look very different, very soon.

Facebook has begun rolling out its Timeline feature to all users. A message at the top of your personal profile’s Home tab will inform you that your profile is being switched to Timeline. You will have seven days to review and edit your past posts, photos, videos, etc. before anyone else can see your Timeline.

If you want to see how your timeline appears to other people, click the gear menu at the top of your timeline, and select “View As.” You can choose to see how your timeline appears to a specific friend or the public.

You can publish your timeline at any time during the 7-day review period. If you wait, your timeline will go live automatically after seven days, replacing your profile (your stories and photos will still be there, they’ll just be formatted differently).

What is Timeline?

According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Timeline allows Facebook members to store and share videos, photos and posts from the most important moments of their lives, organized year by year.

A TechCrunch article by Sarah Perez states:

“…Timeline makes it far easier for you to travel back through your Facebook posts – posts which normally disappeared off your Wall and into oblivion. The posts from these previous months and years are now accessible through new navigational elements on the right-side of your screen that let you quickly travel back in time to the day you were born.”

Facebook has offered the feature on a voluntary basis since mid-December. But, if you’re like me (hoping that if you just ignored Timeline it would go away), you haven’t made the switch yet.

You can voluntarily switch now, and give yourself a few more days to get your Timeline in order. To get started, visit http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline, where you’ll find a helpful video tour.

Keep in mind that Facebook usually rolls out major redesigns to its personal profiles first and then implements them on Facebook (fan/business) pages. So be prepared for Timeline to appear on Pages in the not-too-distant future.

Four More Resources for Creating Your Timeline

  1. The Facebook Blog – Tutorial that explains how to find and change Timeline’s major features.
  2. TechCrunch – Reviews the changes and introduces the new tool, Activity Log, which allows you to review all your posts and activity, from today back to when you first started using Facebook. Fortunately, only you can see your activity log.
  3.  How to Enhance Your Facebook Timeline with Apps -Whether you love to cook, eat, travel, run, or review movies, you can tell your story using timeline apps available from Foodspotting, Foodily, Ticketmaster, Pinterest, Rotten Tomatoes, Pose, Kobo, Gogobot, TripAdvisor, and others. From the Facebook blog.
  4. Mobile Timeline Available on Android and m.facebook.com – From the Facebook blog.

Do You Have Timeline?

If you’ve already activated Timeline on your profile, and you’re willing to share a link to it, please do. We’d also love to hear pointers from those of you who have switched, to help make the transition quick and painless for the rest of us. Thanks!

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  • Ron

    I’m not thrilled with this change at all.  I may spend more time developing my Google + presence.
    Ron

  • Janet Ann Collins

    Why does Facebook keep making things worse? In the years since I first joined I haven’t seen a single change that was an improvement, and there’s no way to let them know what we think.

  • http://bloggingbistro.com/ Laura Christianson

    Good idea, Ron. I may just do that, as well.

  • http://bloggingbistro.com/ Laura Christianson

    Janet, They must think they can get away with it because they have so many users. 800 million and counting! Seems as if developing their infrastructure is something they do on the fly. Not a good business practice, in my opinion.

    And their complete lack of customer service irks more than a few million people (me included). The only benefit to me, personally, is that my Facebook troubleshooting tutorials get a lot of readers because no one can get a direct answer from the folks at Facebook.

    I’m not affiliated with Facebook in any way — I just figure stuff out and then share what I’m learning.

  • http://profiles.google.com/chrispededh Chris Pedersen

    I’m with Ron. Who has time to figure all this out. Thanks Laura for your warnings.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1096974558 Mary Beth Smith

    For the most part, I’ve been pleased with the look of Timeline. However, it’s easy for the page to become crowded, so I manually remove activities, “likes”, and the posts showing that I changed my profile or cover pic, because they post the picture with it and it’s BIG!  If you’re experimenting with cover pictures, or even profile pics, it’s annoying to have every single one of them show up in your timeline – and completely unnecessary!

  • Jodymoreen

    I echo the sentiments of NOT being thrilled about this change. The Facebook pages of others I have seen ( who have made the change ) look so disjointed and confusing and I do not like posts on two sides of the page.  Don’t really want to put in the time to do this and would be open to a switch. Is there another Social Media network that’s good and less apt to make all these continual changes? Maybe if they were aware of a MASS EXODUS, Facebook might sit up and listen.  Any Christian faith-based Social Network site that are good?? Thank Laura for the  update! 

  • http://bloggingbistro.com/ Laura Christianson

    Time… that’s the killer, Jody. Because if you DON’T set Timeline up the way you want, you will have little control over what is public and what is private. So in my opinion, it’s a must-do. And since it is a mandatory change, whether we like it or not, it would probably be better to set up Timeline right away, so you have a bit more time to get everything functioning the way you want it.

    If there was a mass exodus (a la Netflix), that might send a message. But honestly, I don’t think that will happen, because Facebook, unlike Netflix, is free. People are hooked on it like caffeine and most of us will just sigh and go along with it.

  • http://bloggingbistro.com/ Laura Christianson

    Thanks for the helpful tips, Mary Beth.

    Question: Do you have to manually remove things on an ongoing basis, or can you do that during the initial setup period?

  • http://bloggingbistro.com/ Laura Christianson

    Google will be glad to hear that, Chris!

    You’re welcome… always happy to share what I’m learning.

  • Marisa

    I switched and used PhotoShop to create a collage. Here’s
    my cover…http://facebook.com/marisa.shadrick
    I tried to convey my personality using personal and free photos from
    PhotoXpress. I’m not a savvy PhotoShop person so it was pretty basic. If you
    want to create a cover page using PhotoShop there’s a great tutorial on YouTube.
    I used

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwTVn4hBPJE

  • http://www.zinovysjourney.com/ Ginny Jaques

    It’s pretty painless to switch, but I still haven’t figured out how to do some things.  I don’t even remember which things I haven’t figured out yet, so I’m really up a creek.

  • http://bloggingbistro.com/ Laura Christianson

    LOL! Maybe I’ll write a tutorial on how to switch when I go through the process myself.

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