NEW YORK — Facebook will start requiring people to switch to a new profile format known as Timeline, making photos, links and personal musings from the past much easier to find.
Timeline is essentially a scrapbook of your whole life on Facebook. By contrast, Facebook’s traditional profile page is more of a snapshot of you today.
Although some people have already voluntarily switched to Timeline, Facebook hadn’t made that mandatory. Beginning Tuesday, Facebook is telling some users that they have seven days to clean up their profiles before Timeline gets automatically activated. Facebook is rolling out the requirement to others over the next few weeks.
At some point, even those who haven’t logged on to Facebook in a while will be automatically switched.
timeline is a jumbled up mess. I’m baffled that facebook wants to look more like MySpace.
I DO NOT LIKE THE TIMELINE at all, and will close it all, I thought that wasn’t true……why are they doing this?
It looks nothing like MySpace at all and if you take the time to clean things up the Timeline works very nicely. I thought I was going to dislike it but now that I have things they way I want them I’m enjoying the new look.
What do you have to do to clean things up?
I absolutely hate the timeline. It is not intuitive and is virtually unusable.
It is very usable if you take the time to learn how it works.
How can anyone still be part of this facebook? Why not just give them your social security and mothers maiden name and get righ to the end game. Facebook wants to own all info about you and be able to sell it to highest bidder. Wake up.
I enjoy using Facebook a lot. It allows me to keep in touch with friends that I have known for over 20 years. It allows me to keep family members up to date about how life is going.
Facebook is not the big evil thing everyone thinks it is. Sure they data mine but so does almost every single site on the intertubes.
Don’t like Facebook, don’t use it. It is that simple.
I just find it amazing that people will hand over their most private protected data to fakebook without understanding the risk.
If more people understood the risk and realize that fakebook is not in the charity business, but are in business to make money selling your personal information, then they probably would protect their personal information more.
what sorts of data are you concerned people are handing over to facebook? i’m just curious what the “private protected data” is that you’re referring to.
I am wondering the same thing. You can open a Facebook account with an email address. That’s all the information that you “have” to give. All other information is voluntary. I just clicked on “Bill Buck” up there and it went right to a twitter account. What’s the difference?
It is way late to worry about Facebook….LOL
If the general public knew anything about Facebook and the data they collect about people, they would be horrified. Keep in mind too, than anything you post on their site – pictures, poetry, ideas – all becomes their property the moment you post it. This timeline thing is nuts.
So why are you even using the intertubes then? Facebook is not the only site that data mines.
Fakebook is not the only site that mines your data, but the data that people just hand over to them in the name of being friends is just plain ludicrous, and every bit of it is used and sold.
False. You own your own photos and posts.
Facebook is a free service. As in any business, they try to stay ahead of the curve. That is all they are doing. Unless people want to start paying for the service they really have no say in the matter. Simply deactivate your account.
Facebook should be paying subscribers for all the data-mining they do and sell … just sayin’!
Just make your profile (timeline) private and it will be like it doesn’t exist
Will it allow others to see what they hadn’t had access to view previously?
nope
Facebook should allow the users a choice of their own profile page, if a person rather have the new timeline then let them use it, if a person rather have the old style then let them. It should be the user’s choice. I prefer the old way myself, don’t like the new timeline at all.
I think the commentary they’re going for here is: If you have skeletons in your closet you don’t want new friends, old friends, family, or employers to know about now is a good time to ferret them out and get rid of them. Regardless of Facebook’s security and data collection habits, all users of Facebook have to realize that personal opinions are coming under more and more scrutiny.
The company that is Facebook is essentially saying: “Don’t blame us if you lose your job, get disowned, or ridiculed; we warned you.
anything that appears on your timeline tomorrow is already available today – it just takes longer to drill down to find it. If you have something that can get you fired when it appears on your timeline, you’re already on very thin ice since it’s available currently.
Facebook is going to lose a significant number of users by pushing Timeline. I have already started removing content from my page and will shut it down completely when it is switched to Timeline. Considering that the preponderance of feedback has shown a strong dislike of Timeline, the meglomaniac Zuckerberg and his bunch of nabob nerds seem intent upon forcing it on their users so that information can be harvested and sold to corporations for marketing purposes. Loser sellouts.
i like it. much better than previous profile page.
They are also thinking of changing the name to 2Facedbook. One that is true and the one that is displayed on your wall.
If people were not lazy and they actually read Facebook’s Terms of Service and adjusted their Privacy Settings properly this would not be that big of a deal. I am a Facebook user, have been since its inception, and people, even those I deem Friends, can only view what I allow them to view.
Have been told to go on my Profile and mark everything as seen by … “Only Me” and that should prevent that information from appearing on timeline. Otherwise, subscribers can delete information they do not want present. Or, so I am told. Wish I knew the reality …