So just tried this out this afternoon. All I can tell the difference is a "cover" picture and split timelines of my stuff vs people's stuff on my page. What am I missing here? It's not that drastically different right?
That's most of it right there. When people click on your name, instead of a Wall, they see a Timeline. At first glance, it looks pretty much the same except that things are in two columns rather than one.
But there's actually a bit more to it than that.
What Timeline does that some people don't like, and which some people absolutely love, is present everything you've ever entered or posted, chronologically. As many always suspected, Facebook keeps everything. A status update from two years ago is there, on your Timeline, with the date you posted it. Pictures you posted are there, on your Timeline, with the date your posted them. Everything.
A lot of people don't like that. They don't want to be reminded of everything they've ever said or posted. I understand that.
Another thing is that some people don't post pictures until a while after the event. Say you post an album of pictures from someone's wedding or birthday or something, but you post them a few months later. Those pictures show up on your Timeline on the date you posted them, not the date of the actual event. In a way, it makes it look like the date is wrong. Facebook has always shown the date you posted pictures, but now that everything is assigned a point in time, it makes the dates more important or something.
Now here's the cool thing: You can change the date of every single picture. The default is just to give Month and Year, but you can also assign a Day if you want. And the picture will show that date (or just month/year) and be displayed there on your Timeline. Those birthday or wedding pictures will now be in the right place.
The downside of course is that you actually have to edit all the dates in order to make that happen. There may be a way to do entire albums at once, but I don't know. I didn't think of that when I went through and converted mine, since I don't really have that many, but it would make sense to be able to do. You may be fine just leaving them with the dates they were posted, but I'm sure some people will want to put the "correct" date on every single picture. For example, my sister posted a bunch of pictures from when we were kids, and I grabbed copies of them. But I changed the dates so that they show up in the proper place in my Timeline. Anyone looking at them can tell that they are not recent pictures and it bugs me that the dates are "wrong".
Once you "activate" Timeline, you don't have to convert your page right away. They give you up to a week before your Timeline is "published". This gives you time to edit all those dates and arrange things how you like before everyone sees them in the new format.
There are also Life Events. When you were born, or moved to a different city, or graduated, or got married, etc., can all be placed on your Timeline, along with a picture and/or description. Your Timeline becomes something of a visual autobiography.
And finally, they've added more security controls. I like having more control over everything that shows up, and who gets to see it. I don't share everything with everyone, as I have "friends" from various parts of my life, some friends of friends, and a few I've never actually met in person but have gotten to know online.
Topic: Facebook Timeline (Read 5232 times)
