Your Life is a Story

Facebook fans, as of this week, there is a new way to organize your ‘stuff’ and get it out there: Timeline. This feature is actually a new profile format that takes all the stuff you have currently on Facebook and lets you arrange it in a sequential ‘storyline’ fashion. Your life unfolds day by day, event by event and now Facebook lets you present your story in just that way. Users will find that Timeline is simple to use and fun to organize because you get to decide what is important and worth memorializing. Present all of your previously shared photos and ‘stories’ in your personal timeline where you decide what to highlight.

Keep Track of Current Interests

Timeline will also be a fun way to help your friends keep up with your more current ongoing accomplishments or interests.  For example, you may want to tell friends which holiday music you are enjoying in December, but will want to showcase some of your new musical finds once January rolls around. Timeline lets you do that in a way that is simple for your friends to follow.  Or maybe you are preparing for a marathon or triathlon….have fun chronicling your miles on the bike, in the water or on the pavement. You pick which moments are important in your story.

Starting Your Timeline Story

Making the upgrade to Timeline is quick and fool-proof. Simply select the Introducing Timeline page and once there, choose Get Timeline.  Once you initiate Timeline you decide which stories you want to feature. Maybe you want to include your first day behind the wheel of your new car, your graduation day, or the day a newborn joined your family. To feature a story, just roll over it and then click on the star. When you do, two columns will appear along with the option to hide/delete/edit the posting.

Share Your Timeline with Whom You Choose

A dropdown tab is available that allows you to choose privacy settings, to determine who can see your postings and who cannot. Timeline will also give you entrè to another tool - your Activity Log. The Activity Log allows you to review every posting and all of your activity from the first day you started using Facebook right up to the present. Your Activity Log (viewable only by you) contains dropdown menus that allow you to determine whether a posting will appear in your Timeline and if so, how many people are allowed to see it.

Time to Consider Your Timeline

Before your Timeline goes live, you have seven days to look over what you’ve chosen and how it is presented before anyone else gets a peek. Of course, if you are happy with it, you are free to publish your Timeline any time during the seven day review period. If you use the full seven days of reviewing, your Timeline will automatically activate. In case you are curious as to how your Timeline looks to your friends, just click on the gear icon at the top of your Timeline and choose “View As”.

Timeline Has Already Started

The Timeline profile became available all across the globe on December 15, 2011. It is also available for Android users and on m.facebook.com. Timeline designers welcome user feedback!