At the recent F8 Conference Facebook revealed a new look at some new features to the world. The changes it brings in makes your profile look a little more snazzy and you can have a nice big header image. These new features will be rolled out over the coming weeks. As a Facebook developer (anyone can be one), I was able to get into the new feature immediately and take it for a test drive.
As mentioned in an earlier article, the point of a little competition driving innovation and regular updates shows us again that in every sector of life and business – competition is the key and Google Plus has certainly drivin Facebook to get off their backsides and provide many updates people have been screaming about for years.
Here are some of the new features:
Header Image
The first thing everyone will notice is you have control over what you profile will look like by managing and editing the main image header. I like this, it gives your profile a new personal look and feel.
Hide Updates by Third Party Apps
The worst feature of Facebook, is that when you like a celebrity or a page your newsfeed is then filled with junk mail and posts from these third party apps. So if you don’t want to see these or are tired of people who feed their twitter tweets in as Facebook updates you can get rid of them immediately! If you are viewing your newsfeed and see that an update is from an app you can click on the dropdown arrow next to the update and select the Hide All by fillthisspace. Nice!
Custom Lists
You can now sort your feeds into Custom Lists, Family, Friends, Wannabees etc. You can create a custom list and add it to your favorites and then click on those lists to get that lists news feed. It would be nice if you could make one of these your default news feed though!
Privacy Overhaul
Firstly, everything you do, forever and ever, is saved on Facebook. If you use Facebook, you must understand this. If you haven’t looked at this already, you should. Go to your Privacy Settings, and Edit Settings for How Tags Work. Turn on Profile Review and Tag Review.
You can review your tags, by visiting your profile page and, under Wall, you will see an option for Needs Review. You can then click on this to see any posts, photos, and other requests that need your approval.
Facebook is making you do the work with privacy, so you cannot complain (in their eyes) if people see things you do not want them to see.
Timeline Profile
As you can see from my screen capture your new Facebook profile features a timeline of you and your profiles events by year and month. A little creepy if you share life’s intimate secrets, like how many times you are in and out of a relationship etc, who has friended and unfriended you and when (ouch).
There are also more options for events in your life like relationships, children and the like. I prefer to keep all of this pretty private, but some people just love telling us these things. So for those of you who want to share life’s events in gory detail here are some other options. You can also create your own!
Other examples include:
- Got Engaged
- Got Married
- Add a Child
- Add a Pet
- Add a Job
- Graduated
- Military Service
- Moved
- Bought a Home
- Add a Roommate
- Add a Vehicle
- Broke a Bone
- Had Surgery
- Overcame an Illness
- Learned a Language
- Got a License
- Traveled
- Achievement or Award
To me most of these options are welcomed, but beware this is all recorded, so share what you want, but keep in mind it is forever 🙂 As for business pages, it seems they are still being left a little behind, but you can be sure
7 Comments
MAC
Interesting to note that perhaps Google+ v Facebook is a case of market differentiation between Tools vs. Toys:
See this article on “Why The Timeline Changes Nothing”
http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/24/tools-vs-toys-why-the-timeline-changes-nothing/
Also, this on Social networking entering the dreaded “It’s Complicated” stage.
Facebook gained popularity because apart from targeting Harvard students, where they could get rapid uptake, it was simple to use. Is it still that easy?
http://gigaom.com/2011/09/23/social-networking-enters-the-dreaded-its-complicated-stage/
Nick
Another key change is FB is opening up ‘actions’ to apps.
Right now you can only ‘Like’ something, whether its a comment, photo or blog post. From October 1st, apps will be able to add new actions such as a news site can say you ‘read’ an article.
I’ve actually got the Timeline already and whilst it is visually different, I think apps being able to define new actions will have more implications.
The Timeline looks a little ill for me. If you don’t share your entire life on Facebook then Timeline is just a glorified wall. 😛
Ryan O'Grady
I think this is really exciting.
When we rolled out our facebook apps late last year you could still add apps to your fb profile. FB then changed this so 3rd party apps could not be added to profiles which was a setback for us. This was probably a good thing as profiles were becoming cluttered. But with the new timeline layout this won’t be an issue, and will allow for unlimited integration outside of facebook.
The new Ticker feature on fb is quite good as it will filter rubbish from your RSS. Ticker also encourages uses to post more status updates and integrate fb more into their lives. I think of Ticker as similar to Twitter where you can just see a line of text whenever a friend interacts with facebook.
I had a look at my own timeline as well Nick. There were a lot of gaps but when i looked at it the next morning there was a lot more information. Maybe i wasn’t looking at it correctly the first time or perhaps fb needed to refresh a cache or locate the data. You’ll find that regular facebook users will begin adding more and more content from their past to fill in gaps in their timeline…..which is exactly what fb want.
Sam
The timeline is a game changer and will be massive IMHO.
First innovative move by FB in some time….
Greg Vincent
The Open Graph is going to be a huge game changer in the Social Space. Integration with outside applications will mean that FB will have many of the same products available that Google have within a blink of an eye in the online timeline and Facebook don’t have to do the development or buy companies out to include them within their offering.
Google+ v’s Facebook will by like Blogger v’s WordPress.
I really like the new changes. Timeline, Smart Lists, Ticker, Improved Privacy Settings, Verbs (not just Like) and Subscribe (allows you to connect with people without the obscure Friend Requests – a bit like Twitter in that way).
RyanMac
Pretty sure FB as feeling the pinch of Google+. Interesting..
http://soshable.com/hating-facebook-changes/
Nick
Smart Lists is completely brain dead IMHO. Still prevents me from using one account for business and personal whilst the Google+ implementation easily lets me keep them very separate.