New Facebook Timeline Profile – User Reactions

Although I’ve been using the new Facebook Timeline profile for a couple months now, it was released to the general population this week. It is a significant change from the old Facebook interface so make sure that you read up on how to prepare your Facebook Timeline profile.

As with most social media updates there are some mixed opinions about Facebook Timeline but a few of those opinions are more popular than others. If you haven’t yet enabled Facebook Timeline, you can watch my video tutorial on how to enable Timeline.

What do the majority of Facebook users think about the new Facebook Timeline profile? Here are some of the more popular first impressions of Timeline:

Positive Facebook Timeline Impressions:

• Much more personal and customizable – allows for more creativity.
• More Facebook applications and more functionality for existing applications.
• A more fluid, more transparent and more modern user interface.
• More options in regards to posting to specific groups of people (friends, family, coworkers, etc.).

Negative Facebook Timeline Impressions:

• Cluttered and less organized profile view.
• Too easy for people to look at past photos, posts and Facebook activity.
• A higher learning curve; it can be confusing when organizing post visibility.

Personal Opinion:

As I stated earlier, I have been using the new Facebook Timeline profile for a couple months now and although there have been some minor issues, I think it is definitely an improvement on the old Facebook profiles.

At first it is a bit scary when you realize how much more available all of your old posts and activities are to your friends and family. Once you finish preparing your profile for the Facebook update you shouldn’t have to worry too much about the decreased amount of privacy.

One aspect that I really enjoy about the new interface is being able to look back at a Timeline history of your life. I would love it if my parents and grandparents had a Facebook Timeline that I could look at and show my future children so they could have a better idea of what type of people their ancestors were and are.

Of course there are certain things that you would hide from your Timeline (which you can do) but in the end it is almost like an autobiography with photos, events and accomplishments.

With any type of major change comes both positive and negative user reaction – the latter usually being more pronounced. We are seeing that with the new Facebook Timeline but I believe that, once the dust settles, the majority of Facebook users will appreciate the updates and forget all about the transition process.

What is your first impression / opinion of the new Facebook Timeline profile?