Facebook is about to do something that will rock the world, and change the way that we interact with technology and the internet forever. For the past few days people have been talking a lot about the new news feed, but what hasn’t been talked about until yesterday at the F8 conference Mark Zuckerberg introduced the timeline, or the new profiles. A complete overhaul of a profile page, a rethinking of how we view our digital lives, and how others view us.
On September 29th Facebook will roll out to the masses this overhaul, and when I say overhaul I mean re-built from the ground up. Facebook has been striving to create the most perfect representation of you online with their platform for years, and with every like, comment and photo you add to that. But what they’ve done now no longer just consists of “likes” and “walls” it’s a timeline, and you have the option of curating it. It’s the museum of me but on crack.
The wall is dead, there is no longer such thing as the “wall” it has been replaced with a timeline, a timeline of someones life. The thoughts they had on a day or the photos they posted from that trip are now recorded and documented in a totally different way.
Facebook’s vision of the future involves bringing its users entirely into its social platform, allowing for the Facebook page to be a sort of one-stop shop, scooping up all of your activities and displaying them in one grand, blue and white frame.
The grand plan begins visually. The new “Timeline” product is something of an overview of your past Facebook activity in an entirely different visual format. Timeline goes back into your history of status updates, the apps you’ve used and the places you’ve checked into.
The other half of Facebook’s vision: Apps. Facebook’s new class of social applications include the media-centric — music, movies, news and books — as well as what the company calls “lifestyle apps.” Essentially, instead of just “liking” things, the new class of apps will allow you to “read, watch and listen” to the integrated media services.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
I can see now that we will have to be even more diligent with the information we post. This kind of thing is the perfect set up for any criminal or spy who is looking for identity theft. What better way than to have one's life laid out in great detail. I expect there will be security settings, and hopefully they will not be as confusing as they have been. It will be interesting to see how this goes,but I do expect there to be a new batch of ID thefts written about in the news shortly afterwards.
Let me tell you why FB is having problems and most likely will continue to. I used to have a retail business and alot of our sales came from EBAY. While we were selling big time on there they implemented a change in how they billed their users and never told their users first or TESTED it to see how it would affect their users or even if it worked. They screwed it up so bad and when you have millions of people using software you need to test it.
FB is going down the myspace road and they are partnering up for financial reasons and I see them making changes based on money not on how it affects people. Their 'out of the blue' change this week was the dumbest thing they have ever done and to do this with another alternative looming Google + is stupid. The only reason FB is popular is not because of their gadgets it is because everyone is on it. Simple is better. No one wants to have to learn a new system every few months or even weeks in this case. I don't believe in changes that affect your users like that. Using the old way is the best. Users go to what is easiest to use and to where everyone is. They don't want to have to go to 4 different places to post. I think FB is getting really close to jumping the shark here. I think Google plus has alot of issues as well and may not be the future but FB is doing some really arrogant things and that just may be the end of them. Acting like you cannot be taken down is very dangerous territory. Confusing your users is just a cardinal sin in my book. And the more people you are dealing with the worse it is.
Facebook made some big changes in terms of how things look and work, but its inexorable drive to drag us all into publicly sharing everything from everywhere with everyone all the time remained consistent. The most noticeable new features that reflect that are Timeline and Ticker. Ticker delivers real-time updates of your friends' actions, while Timeline archives everything you've ever done on Facebook. But the big change, the true assault to your privacy, is under the hood: Open Graph.
Open Graph is a development tool that lets third-party apps and sites report your activities back to Facebook. It's meant to extend or replace the Like button. It's a way for sites and services to jack directly into Facebook from anywhere. If companies use Open Graph, they can publish to your Ticker and Timeline, too, effectively sending tattle-tale updates on anything you do to everyone you know, in real time. And then Facebook gets to keep that data forever. It is the ultimate collection tool, a way for Facebook to monitor you, wherever you go.
The thing about Open Graph is that it's actually very seductive. ...when you start extending Open Graph everywhere and it begins tattling on far more personal details like, say, your reading habits. That's not even some crazy what-if. It's already happening at The Washington Post; if you use the Post's Social Reader app, it automatically reports the stories you read to Facebook. As Michael Donohoe points out, your sudden keen interest in cancer stories might alarm your friends and family.
Given the near ubiquity of Facebook Connect across the Web, and the difficulty of ditching your Facebook cookie, you can easily see how all kinds of sites and services and apps are about to start reporting all kinds of things about your behavior, whether or not you are aware of it. You can already log into Hulu with Facebook Connect, what happens when it starts reporting every single video you watch?
:VeryScared:
Read the last 2 paragraphs of the article for ways to be vigilant/actions to take.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
This is geared toward organizations that use FB, moreso than individuals, but it still has some really good info on the changes (with pictures to help explain - see article).
http://nonprofitorgs.wordpress.com/2011 ... now-about/ 10 Recent Upgrades to Facebook Your Nonprofit Needs to Know About
September 26, 2011
by nonprofitorgs
If the changes below leave you the least bit confused, then you may want to consider taking my upcoming Facebook and Facebook Apps webinars because you might not fully understand the Facebook toolset.
1. Status Updates are now called “Stories” in the News Feed.
2. “Stories” can now be marked as a “Top Story.”
3. Sharing quality, engaging content is more important than ever on Facebook.
4. The new Facebook Ticker gives your nonprofit added exposure.
5. Non-Fans can now Like and Comment on your Status Updates on your Page’s Wall.
6. Facebook Pages are now displayed under “Info > Education and Work” on personal Facebook Profiles.
7. Facebook Pages are being converted into Facebook “Location” Pages a.k.a. Facebook Places Pages.
8. You can request to merge duplicate Community Pages with your Facebook Page.
9. You can request to merge duplicate Places Pages.
10. Foursquare Venues, Gowalla Spots, and Yelp Pages are now linked on Facebook Places Pages!
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
Fine, So they want to have you prioritize your interests or id the people you follow more closely. The change also appears to open up your posts to "non-fans". Who are these people? Does this mean its more like a news report that everyone in the world can read? I hope not, because that is not what I want with my posts. I want those to be limited to the friends I've accepted.
Overall, what I see is them taking your personal information and making them more broadly available, again not something I want. I'll need to see security settings and options before commenting further, but if I do understand the fb pages being displayed in different areas it exposes you to far greater risk and lack of privacy.
It's almost here: Facebook's Timeline is now available, by choice, to all. You can opt into it, modify your content to hide anything that you don't want seen that you posted way back when, and publish it. Otherwise, on Dec 22nd, you'll be forced into the change and everything is up.
As best as we can tell, your privacy setting seem to remain intact, but as with any Facebook update, you may want to check and make sure you're not accidentally sharing information you don't want to. Timeline comes with a few new settings of its own, including rules regarding who can post on your Timeline and who can't, so it's worth reviewing your settings before hitting the publish button.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
As Facebook Timeline continues to roll out to individual users site wide, it’s worth noting that three ‘Giving” apps have been launched in Facebook’s new App Gallery for Timeline: Causes, FundRazr, and Artez Interactive:
Organized under the category of “Giving” in the new App Gallery for Timeline, two of the apps focus on social fundraising (friends asking friends to donate to causes and their favorite nonprofits) and one is a simple Share-on-Facebook-that-you-donated app.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
Facebook's new Timeline feature is rolling out to all users, and while we think it's pretty awesome—not to mention ripe for customization—there are a lot of people who aren't big fans. If you don't really like the Timeline view, here's how to get rid of it.
This method won't take you back to the old layout, but it will get rid of some of Timeline's clutter, like the cover photo, friends box, and two-column view. The layout will still be different and timeline-y, but it will be much cleaner. It won't change anything about how other people see your profile—just how you view Facebook on your machine. All you need is an extension called Social Fixer. Here's what you need to do.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
Heads-up that if you didn't like what was already different, there's more in the pipeline happening this week...
