Facebook has re-imagined the user Profile Page with a feature called Timeline, announced today at their f8 conference. Timeline is a page on which you can put the events and activities that matter most to you. Facebook provides some of the most important stuff that you'd want to put there, like photos and major life events, but you have the option to edit, delete or add what you like.
"The Facebook Profile page was the single biggest lost opportuninty in the history of human story telling," said Sam Lessin, a product manager at Facebook.
Realizing the original concept of the Facebook profile had become stale, Facebook hired infographics specialist Nicholas Felton to rethink the visualization of the user profile. He immediately asked one simple question, "What would an annual report look like for one person?"
Facebook's Timeline is their first attempt to solve the complex problem of expressing a person's life on one page. Timeline displays the most important aspects of your life, organized in a reverse chronological scrollable page, offering a much richer way to express yourself.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Founder and CEO said, "Timeline is the heart of the Facebook experience re-thought from the ground up. It is all your stories, all your apps, and a new way to express who you are. Timeline offers a story of your life."
Chris Cox, VP of Product Management at Facebook further expanded saying, "Timeline is the modern scrapbook. All of your memories are organized in one place and expressed in a giant conversation as you might explain them to a friend. Timeline provides the blank canvas to tell your story."
Availability
Timeline will launch to users in the coming weeks. People will be able to add apps to their Timeline to show friends what they love, seamlessly update Timeline with their activity as they go, and have an easy way to reengage with the app.
by Brian Mitchell, Founder & CEO, eCoustics.com