Love It Or Hate It: New Facebook Features, Timeline, “Liking”, and Apps are Here
Every year or so (and sometimes more frequently) Facebook manages to anger a large percentage of users by drastically changing site look and feel. It’s no different than with the changes that have been unveiled yesterday and what is becoming clear is Facebook wants to become an entertainment hub.
Yesterday, Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg outlined a new look for Facebook, a counter to Google’s +1 rival social networking service which was unleashed in June.
These changes indicate that Facebook is trying to transform into an “entertainment hub” for it’s 800 million users, allowing them to have more interaction and influence among friends (and soak up more of their time online).
If you aren’t a fan of the new Facebook layout (the current one), don’t worry—big changes are in the works. The Facebook team announced a new feature: the Timeline, which takes a very different direction from previous Facebook profiles. The Timeline feature was explained as an evolution from the original profile page (“the first five minutes of conversation” to a more complete view of you, “the rest of the conversation”). Your Timeline will be is your collection of all the top photos, posts, and apps that are supposed to help tell your story. For visuals, check out at http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline.
The Timeline
Timelines will be very visually appealing, with a large header image atop the page and larger, bold images and text throughout. The purpose of a timeline is to show users your history and highlights—the further you go back, the less information will be visible—only “past highlights” will be shown. Picture a magazine-style look that chronicles your life in a manner similar to a scrapbook. However, with a few clicks, users will be able to expand to see all yearly data, given they have permission. All Facebook users will be moved to the timeline layout after an “undisclosed time period”. This compliments the news ticker Facebook launched earlier in the week that shows all real time activity of friends in one location, similar to Twitter.
“Liking” is Now a Verb
Another major change to Facebook is the “Like” button will evolve into a verb that’ll be applicable for a variety of actions, including (watch, read, eat, listen, hike), etc… App revisions will also play a major way in the way users “like” items on Facebook. Facebook is making media and app integration even easier—Facebookers will be able to share news, videos, and music quickly and easily. Share what you recently listened to, read, or watched on your timeline—it’ll also be possible to share music with other users and listen together. Netflix and Spotify applications on Facebook were shown too. You’ll start seeing apps in general becoming more social and taking up a larger Facebook presence—you’ll also be able to add apps directly into your timeline. These new features (and partnerships with Hulu and Netflix) allow users to share entertainment and information choices for movies, music, TV, books, games, and news. You’ll also see “lifestyle” apps that allow users to share what they’re eating, cooking, and doing.
So what’s the big deal?
This big media push and profile makeover is here because Facebook faces growing competition from Google’s new +1. Users now have a greater influence over how their peers and others spend their time and money. Users will be able to see links from services affiliated with Facebook, as are generated automatically when friends listen to songs or watches a movie on them. Users will be able to grant permission when they start using applications for these updates to be posted to their friends. Facebook strives to become the epicenter for shared experiences—individuals will create their own social media networks that influence other’s behavior. At heart, Facebook is a technology company that strives to keep improving products so it doesn’t grow stale for users. Engineers have tried to anticipate new ways users want to use Facebook. Sometimes this works, sometimes no. Facebook’s goal is for users to share and interact more, whether that’s with businesses, friends, and public figures.
Isn’t this just about Facebook making more advertising money?
Yep, although Facebook has never admitted that as its outright goal, that’s almost certainly going to be one outcome. Think of this redesign as a “if we build it, more will come” situation. According to the eMarketer research firm, Facebook is supposed to bring in $3.8 billion dollars of advertising revenue this year (worldwide) and $5.8 billion in the year 2012. The more time users spend onsite and share information about themselves and their activities, the better companies can target their ad campaigns.
Ok, So Why Don’t I have it Yet?
Features are being rolled out gradually (800 million users won’t see the updates all at once). It’ll come your way soon!
Tell us what you think about these changes in the comments below.
Got questions? Email: Erica.ronchetti@boomtownig.com.
Posted by Erica Ronchetti
In Facebook Marketing
On September 23, 2011
Thanks for sharing Facebook is forever changing features and inventing new add ons. We all complain about the changes at first but then we adapt ourselves to them, because we enjoy being on Facebook. Here’s a link to another article I came across about the facebook timeline that might interest you guys: http://www.pha-media.com/digital-pr-blog/2011/10/04/the-new-generation-of-facebook-campaigns…/