Improvements to Timeline | Hacker News Reader

Improvements to Timeline

newsroom.fb.com

32 pointsfriggeri11 comments

I read this as:

Monetizing your movie information. Monetizing your literature information. Promoting Facebook apps. Stepping slightly away from the UX atrocity that is Timeline.

I have no problem with any of those. But I wonder about the ordering - is this announcement aimed at investors or users?

It can't be for users. As a user (I log in multiple times a day) I have not visited my own FB profile in ages. I have no need to do so.

I fairly often look at Timeline - usually when I remember a posted link, associate it with a particular person, but it's no longer obvious on my own wall.

Which, of course, brings me to the fact that searching for posted content is so sucky despite being such an obvious candidate for monetization. I have no idea what they're smoking up in Menlo Park.

I use it quite a bit...I've been using it as my personal journal (setting the default post setting to be shown to "Only Me") and it's still the page I see when checking other friends' activity

How many people actually curate their Timeline and/or care about it? Do you look at other people's Timelines? I don't. I rarely venture beyond Feed and Inbox.

I think that's the point -- a passive journal/log of your life and connections (I default all posts to be "Only Me" and share what I want as appropriate to further cement in my mind this idea of a personal journal that's backed up in the cloud.)

It's in this perspective that I don't think you're asking the right questions -- would you consistently read and curate old journals or photo albums? You may every now and then, but the point is that they're there for later reflection...

So did they just go back in time on this new layout? Don't get me wrong, I like it, but it looks they've finally accepted the criticism of the two-column layout and gone back to a more popular version from the past. For reference, here's the layout from 2008 taken off google images: http://blog.hishamrana.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/facebo...

I'm really curious to know why they decided to place the content on the new Timeline on the right, instead of on the left. First instinct would say that the profile information and who their friends are would fit better on the right hand side with the content on the left.

Anyone care to guess?

Arbitrary width user content can overflow the right hand margin without disrupting layout? Hard to say without seeing it in action though.

As a Timeline hater but someone who doesn't have a problem with Facebook in general I (for once) welcome a Facebook change!

Something about the tone of these things makes my skin crawl a little but I can't help but read them. It's like the space aliens trying to convince everybody to board their ship in "To Serve Man".

I read alternating ridicule and conspiracy on the subject of facebook, and I can't help but feel it's all posturing because the effects of this system over time exceed anyone's ability to imagine.

The inferences possible through 'network theory' simply stun me. I'm privy to information about small company, without access to any sources of 'big data' aside from the address books of people who download the app, and it's absolutely shocking what you can learn about people when you know some of their friends. And they're only looking at one signal.

I think you're perceiving accurately to describe FB as something alien.

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