A look into the Facebook changes

We all react the same every time it happens - grumble and post a snarky status. People assume it's the end of the social-networking world and make empty threats to leave Facebook every time it redesigns its website, but this time there are big changes in store for the more than 800 million of us who share cat pictures with the revolutionary service.

There are three main features of this latest makeover: new profiles, Facebook social apps and the Ticker. We'll walk you through all the changes and share some of the complaints (and surprisingly some praise) about the update.

TimelineThe highlight of these changes is the overhaul of the old profiles. The new profile, called Timeline, is much more visual than the old profile and reserves some of your older, more important stories.

 

"With Timeline, we didn't just want to design a place for you to put all your stories and apps. We wanted to design a place that feels like your home," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the company's annual f8 summit.

Timeline starts off by showing all of your posts and activities you've done recently, and as you go further back in time it automatically starts summarizing and surfacing only the meaningful posts and pictures. It gradually starts showing you less and less of old content, while still keeping your most recent stuff visible.

Over on the right-hand side of a profile you'll see a list of years, and by clicking on a year you can get to any point in your life and you can see all your content.

There's also faint blue line that runs down the middle of the page with blue dots that show important things that are highlighted and there are gray dots that show things that are less important. You can still access the gray dots just by hovering over it with the mouse.

If you want to add any pictures from your childhood, you can click on the Timeline in the middle of your page and it's going to pop up with a composer, then if you click that you can add the photo you'd like to share and post.

Also, at the very top of the page, users can now add a cover photo that stretches from both sides of the screen until around the area of your separate profile picture to better express who you are.

And, you can filter your Timeline to be able to view only one type of content, like pictures or statuses You can see a map view of everywhere you've been, the music you've been listening to, TV shows you've been watching and movies you've seen.

"It's a way to discover all the stuff that people have done their whole life," Zuckerberg said.

Some students would prefer to keep some of that information private, like freshman engineering major Samantha Kasten.

"I think it's creepy to be able to look back on someone's past," Kasten said. "The fact that they hold your history and they still have it all is insane."

Others applaud the move.

"I think that's more of an interesting idea than a creepy one," said freshman Clayton Lippincott, "Because you can look back and be like, ‘Oh in this point in time two years ago I was doing this, and I was friends these people.'"

New Facebook Social AppsAlong with the new Timeline, Facebook is going to start rolling out a whole new class of social apps with this latest update.

 

Instead of just liking things to connect to them, now there are other verbs to choose from to describe what you're doing, so you can listen to a song, watch a movie or eat at a meal instead of liking all three.

Two new groups of apps will be joining the current games and social apps already on the website: media apps and lifestyle apps.

The media apps include partnerships with Hulu, Netflix and Spotify and boast categories like music, movies, TV, news and books.

The lifestyle apps have courted the likes of Nike and Ticketmaster and range in topic with subjects like fashion, exercise, food and travel. The Nike + app will show people you ran with, where you ran, what your pace was, total distance, etc.

The idea of being able to see what you're friends have been watching or listening to has proven to be a bit more popular with the general population than the Timeline.

"I think the social apps are cool so I can see what my friends are doing or if they've seen a show or listened to music that looks interesting," said Danielle Battiste.

Still, others see this as an excessive add-on.

"I think it's just to much, we don't need it and people can just get them other places besides Facebook," Lippincott said.

TickerWhen posting stories and activity, your light weight content will no longer show up on your friends' newsfeeds. To avoid this, Facebook rolled out Ticker, which is a lightweight newsfeed that shows in real time what your friends are doing on the side of your screen.

 

While Ticker has been up and running on your profile for a week or two now, it can blend in with your chat bar.

"I didn't even notice it," Battiste said.

But some who have taken note are starting to feel that there's TMI.

"I think it's creepy to be able to see what everyone's doing all the time," Kasten said.

All of these changes compile one of the biggest makeovers the website has seen since the amazing "like" button.

However, like the like button, which sparked public cries for a "dislike" button, not everyone is going to be satisfied with all of the new bells and whistles that will be coming to Facebook.

Whether you're excited or are vomiting in your mouth, one thing is for certain, the new Facebook will soon be coming to a laptop near you.