Facebook unleashes a new slew of changes yet again

Quicker than you can blurt out “TMI!", Facebook has fired off yet another barrage of updated features Friday morning, Manila time. Is it goodbye to your static “Profile" and hello to the unfolding “Timeline" of the story of your life? Plus, the one button “Like" would soon be joined by several other transitive verbs that a Facebook user might opt to use instead. Choices, choices, choices. The social network juggernaut wrapped up its annual developers conference “f8" in San Francisco, California Thursday (Friday, Manila time), with founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivering a keynote speech which rattled off what Facebook will be rolling out in the next few weeks. His keynote was live-streamed to an online audience of over 100,000. The first f8 conference launched the Facebook Platform, the second unveiled Facebook Connect in 2008, and the third gave netizens the now ubiquitous “Like" button in 2010. No f8 conference was held in 2009. Facebook appears unfazed by the initial backlash from users who suddenly found last Wednesday a new Facebook layout, with a real-time “news ticker" which some leery users found uncomfortably “stalker friendly." A week prior to that, Facebook revamped users’ “Friend Lists" by adding “Smart Lists" and served up a “Subscribe" button similar to the “Follow" option of social micro-blogging site Twitter. Switching Profile with Timeline Zuckerberg showed a video clip, later uploaded to video sharing site YouTube, showing the next step in the evolution of the Facebook Profile: the streaming Timeline which reaches all the way back to your previous posts and forward up to your present posted content, rearranging them in a manner following your growth and development in the real world. Technology website Mashable called Timeline “a major re-imagining of user profiles that allows users to build what’s essentially a visual scrapbook of everything they’ve done on the site," adding that “It’s a way to show off who you are, what you do and where you’ve been." Timeline is primarily visual as opposed to the current text-heavy Facebook Profile, and not only makes use of the users posted photographs but also maps of where significant events happened (with the use of Facebook Places, another new feature). Facebook Vice President for Product Management Cris Cox summed up what Timeline is this way: “What would an annual report look like for one person?" ‘Alternative’ Timeline use But already some users – youthful ones at that – are thinking of different ways to use Facebook Timeline, other than to simply share memories. “This newly designed profile can be designed and marketed around yourself or your business (in my case these are one in the same)," realized 20-year old tech entrepreneur Andrew Torba, who posted his epiphany on Facebook’s rival social network, Google+. “I began to see my new profile page not as a typical social profile, but rather as a unique (and free) piece of marketing. Upon a user's landing of my profile page, they will be greeted with a marketing banner for my consulting firm which takes up nearly 50% of the screen. This is staggering," he said, comparing his now up-and-running Facebook Timeline to his blog on Tumblr, which is a more visual social network site. Shauna Nicholson, a digital strategist in her mid-twenties, posted on her blog her ideas also on how to use Timeline as a marketing tool. “Facebook Timeline publishes millions of indexed autobiographies–free–for data profitability & marketers. Facebook now dynamically (and with user help) organizes what content (data!) is priority," she said. “Though the F8 conference wasn’t specifically speaking to marketers (it spoke to users and developers), there were more than enough clues to let you know exactly how Facebook will open up each data piece to marketers." Movies, TV shows, music on Facebook What Nicholson referred to as content and data is no longer limited to photos or short video clips because Zuckerberg had also announced that Facebook is teaming up with several entertainment companies to deliver music, movies and television programs to a Facebook audience. “Facebook is now app-centric; so every run, meal ingredient, movie watched –not just Facebook ‘liked’–has the potential to be documented," she noted. "It’s not designed to keep you out of songs you don’t own, but to open you up to more than you would have ever thought to buy before," said Zuckerberg at f8. Online music distributors Spotify and Rhapsody are partnering with Facebook, as well as movies and syndicated TV shows distributor Netflix and Hulu, among many others. The dynamics on the Facebook page was explained thus: the Timeline will take note of what applications – online music, movie or game – the user engages in order to gauge the user’s preferences, while updates on apps used by those in the user’s Friend List will now appear in the real-time ticker instead of the News Feed. Zuckerberg explained that when users are alerted about what their friends are watching or doing – instead of merely “Liking" – then they can join in whatever activity Facebook friends are engaged in, but now quite literally socially. Obsolete! Mashable posted the Twitter feed of its tech-writers to give across their frenetic anticipation of and reactions to the keynote speeches at f8. “Things Facebook could be making obselete today: scrapbooks, offline conversations, productivity," tweeted Chris Taylor. “And memories. Forget about storing those in your head. Your Facebook brain will take care of them all." “Agreed Chris! Also privacy. That's Obselete too," tweeted Ben Parr. — RSJ, GMA News