Big Facebook Changes

Your own personal online timeline

You've probably read status updates on Facebook from people complaining about the recent News Feed changes.  Get ready to hear some more because the next one is big.  It's being reported in the news, but just in case you haven't heard I'll tell you how to get a head start on everyone else.

How do you enable the new Facebook Timeline?  It's pretty simple - check out the details here.  You have to add the Facebook Developer app to get an advanced update.

As you can see in my screenshot, the most striking feature is a massive 'cover photo' pic that you choose for the top of your page.  On the far right side there is a timeline.  You can scroll by month and skip down years and decades to view posts, pictures and updates.  You can choose for certain items to be ignored from your timeline, giving you full control of what appears.

It'll take a while to get used to and you're going to hear a lot of whining.  Personally, I think it's pretty cool.  I don't have a lot of data before 2004 (when I joined Facebook), but I'm hoping to add some over the next few months to give a full (edited and abridged) autobiographical story.

Facebook Hack

I found this cool Facebook hack today that lets you get really creative with the new site design.  There's even a template available if you're any good with Photoshop.  I don't have any really good pics to use at the moment, but here's a screenshot of my current one (took about 20 minutes to crop together).

 

Here are some more examples of people that are way more creative than me.