Facebook Timelines Starts Rollout in New Zealand

Facebook has started rolling out its much awaited feature called Timelines. Timelines on Facebook is a big design change and will allow users to look up older updates a lot easily. Initially the feature will be made available to users only in New Zealand.

You can use this tutorial to access the new Timelines feature right-away.

The Timelines roll-out will start for users in New Zealand as a test case and users will have a 7 day review period. After 7 days Timelines will be published automatically.

I guess with the feedback from users in New Zealand, Facebook will roll-out Timelines across the world.

Facebook's Timeline Layout

Why was Timelines delayed?

There is no real specific answer to this question given by Facebook. Timelines.com is a website that had trademarked the word Timelines for the US, and that was probably something that was holding Facebook back.

Also there could be a fear of user backlash, as such a radical design change could disappoint Facebook users who might actually end up going to Google+ and other social networks.

Why Timelines could be embarrassing for users?

Facebook has been around for over 5 years. I know some users who have been on Facebook ever since they were in school and now have jobs. People change and so do their status messages and things they share on Facebook.

What someone shared 4 years ago, might be embarrassing today and Timelines makes it very easy for people to look up older wall posts. If Facebook is not careful about educating users and giving them good and simple options to curate posts on their Timeline, Facebook can expect a big user backlash.

Do drop in your comments.

(via Techcrunch)

Related: Facebook delays launch of Timelines

One Comment

Harry December 8, 2011

my profile got upgraded yesterday :))