Timeline (2003)
OK, so Timeline is the name of the new Facebook profile interface. It’s also the name of a horrific 2003 movie based on a novel by Michael Crichton … yeah, the Jurassic Park guy.
Just to give you a point of reference if you haven’t seen this farce of a film: the movie Timeline was literally based off of a dare … or so I’m told. My source(s) for that information are currently offline, so I’ll have to pin them down before I can quote them. Bottom line: the movie makes no sense and thus I happily believe the rumor. Or maybe someone just dared a director to turn the book into a film? I don’t know. I haven’t read the book.
To sum the movie Timeline up: a postal transporter (Star Trek stealers!) device somehow sends humans (vs. packages) back to the medieval era. Chaos ensues. That’s really about it. Yes, they get back to the future (duh), but you simply don’t care why or how. You just want the last two hours of your life back. Or, if you were forewarned and smart, you brought along a bottle of tequila and are now too drunk to be doing anything but laughing hysterically.
Whatever. The point is, Facebook’s Timeline equals this absurdity. I mean, it doesn’t even resemble a normal timeline! They’re generally horizontal or vertical and easy to read …
The layout couldn’t be more visually confusing if a brain-dead three-year-old designed it. Suddenly I have all these blank boxes with pluses in the corners to which I can’t add relevant content (e.g. my photo albums!). One of these blank boxes sits smack in the middle of my header, where a box with content could be sitting instead. ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??! (Phew, that part just self-corrected … but my photo albums are still missing. Help?!*)
One of my friends called me today to tell me that he visited the Creationist museum in Cincinnati and that he posted the pictures on FB … but I can’t find them anywhere! He wouldn’t tease me this way, it’d be too cruel. I must see these photos! There’s no way I’m paying to go to this place, and he got in for free through a (presumably) crazy aunt.
Images I'm missing out on due to Timeline: Biblical Dinosaur at the Creationist Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Whatever happened to the old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” The old (and for many of you, still current) profile page was simple and sweet. It’s been tried and true since its inception in 2004 with very few changes: I know because that’s when I joined!
I won’t even go into all the Privacy issues, except to say that they’re legitimate. Then, several months ago, Facebook started making status updates “Public” by default. It’s like they started thinking of themselves as Twitter—a cry into the dark for anyone to hear. We FB lovers all know that the entire point of Facebook is NOT to broadcast your entire life to the public … just what you want, when you want to your Friends, and then on your own terms and their own terms. We believe in privacy, too. But we also believe in sharing across time and space. That’s what social networking is about. That’s what Facebook USED to be about.
Since the public default status thingy, FB must have adapted an algorithm (or something) where not everything goes global any longer, but I still have to watch every single update to make sure. At least they have yet to mess with Home or my Pages: Dark Archivist and TechnoGabble. But I’ve lost all faith. What next?
I feel betrayed. It’s like everything that Social Networking teetotalers (a subdivision of Techno-TeeTotalers, a term I’m coining RIGHT NOW) have been saving for years is coming true. Maybe it’s sabotage. Maybe it’s Mark Zuckerberg gone ego-crazy after they made a (not flattering but fantastic) film about his baby. I don’t know. But it’s bad.
I don’t know if Facebook is publicly traded, but if you own stock, GET OUT. Actually, if you own stock in any single company and aren’t a professional trader, get out anyway. That’s the surest way to go broke. Diversity is the only way for the vast majority of investors to make any money on the stock market. Don’t believe me? (Why should you?) Go to a professional financial advisor. You’re playing Russian Roulette with your money if you don’t anyway. And never, EVER invest in your own company unless the stocks are free. Even then, SELL THEM if you possibly can.
Ahem.
The “Tour” when you start doesn’t give any information. I can’t find my photo albums even now, a week later into using Timeline. I should also mention that when I went to “try” Timeline, I found no way to go back. EVER. Finally I went ahead and hit “Publish” because a message at the top of my “invisible trial” Timeline homepage kept telling me I’d go live on the 1st anyway.
Zuckerberg, looking so innocent...
It was like harassment or cruelty or something. I’d call them really bad names with lots of “f”s but I’m trying to keep this blog towards a G rating, something I can link to from work without cringing.
Yes, so I am absolutely hating and mind-boggled by Facebook’s Timeline so far. I should NOT have to do major research to use it: no one should. At best, they released it far too soon. At worst, it’s the beginning of the end of Facebook. And I will cry.
Does anyone out there actually like FB’s Timeline? I know I may be an early adopter, but I can’t be that early … So, please, speak up. Give me some New Year’s cheer, I beg of you. Tell me something good about it.
And don’t tell me I’m an idiot who just doesn’t know how to use it. I’m not and I know it. Even if I were, websites must be intuitive to users. Bottom line.
- PC Magazine’s article “10 Things You Should Know About Facebook Timeline”
- Prep for Facebook’ Timeline Layout: 6 Must-Do Privacy Tweaks
- Facebook Timeline vs. Old Profiles from Mashable.com
- Undo Timeline Facebook Page (ha!)
- How to Master Your Facebook Timeline from CNN Tech (!)
- Facebook’s Timeline: We Are All Historians Now from Discovery News
- The Facebook Blog
*Update: found my photo albums under the icon that shows photos with ME in them, which only shows the number of photos in that particular album …
Well, here’s the thing. Facebook has changed several times since it was created, and people have bitched about every little change. And the social network has grown and become more profitable through all of it. You can still make posts private, and in fact the “public as default” privacy thing started a while ago, not with Timeline. (In your privacy options, you can make all past posts friends only if they didn’t already have some other, more limited setting for a few stray ones.) Yes, that the two column design is kind of stupid, but it’s not that hard to pick out the order of things if you follow the middle line. Oh, and photos? I’ve had no trouble finding mine. Immediately under your banner you should see some boxes that say things like “Friends,” “Map,” “Likes,” etc. One of them says photos.
I think you must admit that this is by far the biggest change FB has ever gone through. Monumentally so. A website’s layout is half its function. I think that the Timeline concept could be a good one if they implement it well, which they have yet to do. It doesn’t look like a timeline. Maybe if they made the two columns smaller and the center line more prominent: like with a tree graphic or something? That would help.
As for the Photos, maybe I’m the type of user who gets confused by details. The photo icon you’re talking about shows (on mine) only the number of photos in my “Photos of Amy” folder with an image from that folder. So I was like “Where are the rest of my photos?” for days.
I think I said that the Public Status thing predated the Timeline thing. Because it did. For me it was a forewarning. I don’t know what their default or algorithm is now.
Finally, is there a way to Search “Timeline”? I’m not seeing one. If not, I see no real improvement from the older, simpler format.
I was able to download an “Archive” of FaceBook, but I haven’t had a chance to explore it yet.
But thank you for responding, Chris! I appreciate your input, especially as I consider you far more of an expert in many of these matters than I am.
I believe facebook has gone a step too far with timeline. Maybe it they had gradually implemented some of the changes, like previous changes, it would have been ok.
But nothing will take away from the fact that the two columns are awful and distracting. I did figure out how to make it one column but then photos are even larger. Timeline has made the photos the dominant part of each page. The words gets lost in all the clutter….which I think is intentional for a reason I’m not going to mention now.
We can change it to one column? Really? How?
And I’d be interested in your conspiracy theory sometime …
Yes, Timeline is a disaster. I have many albums of great photos I spent a long time putting up on Facebook and since Timeline whole albums show text but no photos at all, many albums show some photos, not all. I have written to Facebook Help about 4 times, no response except thank you for your patience. I have no patience. Not encouraged to put any more of my photos up. Or to spend more time putting up photos I have already put up there. What now? Soo disappointed in Timeline and Facebook.
That totally sucks. They need to at least respond to your help queries. Generally when I need FB help I just Google my problem. Have you tried that?