Facebook Timeline Profile Changes Begin In New Zealand, Coming Soon To U.S.

Way back in September -- a simpler time, when The Lion King (3D) was the number-one movie, and Rick Perry was the GOP frontrunner for president -- Facebook announced that it was overhauling the look of its profile. Mark Zuckerberg, at a huge event for Facebook developers, introduced the world to the radical new Timeline profile, a reverse-chronological and visual look back at your entire life, from the present day at the top of your stream, down to your birth at the bottom. The social network said that this timeline profile would start rolling "in a few weeks," but for whatever reason, Facebook profiles remained the same.

That is, until now.

The new Facebook timeline profile is coming, and New Zealanders will be the first to (officially) try it out.

In a brief update to the September blog post that announced the timeline in the first place, Facebook's Samuel Lessin writes that the timeline is becoming available to New Zealand Facebook users starting immediately.

The entirety of the announcement:

We announced Timeline in September and made it available to developers building apps on our platform. Since then, over a million people have signed up for the developer beta to access Timeline. The feedback we've received so far has been invaluable. Starting today, we are making Timeline more widely available as we measure speed and other types of performance. We'll begin by making it available to people in New Zealand and then roll it out more broadly in the near future.

Again, it appears that there's no timeline (ha!) for the new profile to be released in America, even though we've been waiting for two months now. Facebook remains tangled in a lawsuit with timelines.com over the uniqueness of the new design, which seemed to be the reason for the delay. But that hasn't stopped over a million people from signing up (or posing as) app developers and trying out the new profile for themselves, nor is it stopping Facebook from beginning its rollout in New Zealand.

The facelift to the profile is the final change in a series of cosmetic revisions to Facebook. The Facebook home page has been almost completely transformed, with an ever-scrolling News Ticker in the upper right hand corner and a persistent chat window below. The News Feed, too, received a major update, with stories sorted by importance rather than newness.

Now it appears -- starting with New Zealand -- the Facebook profile will have its transformational moment, too. As a refresher, the new profile comes with major design changes and new features, like a cover photo that spans the length of the top of your profile and a totally new, almost-checkerboard style layout for the content that has been posted on your profile.

Below, read up on Facebook's new timeline profile as you brace yourself for its eventual landing here in the United States.

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• New 'Cover' Photo

  While past iterations of the Facebook profile have featured a customizable photo that sat near the upper left of the page, users can now top their profile with a large "Cover" photo that stretches across the user's Timeline. This will be in addition to the Profile Picture, which will act as an avatar of sorts for News Feed updates and posting on others' walls.

• New Layout For Updates Posted

  The Timeline is wider than the old profile and displays content in two columns. Posts appear in a continuous stream in chronological order, from top (most recent) to bottom (oldest). The layout is very visual and emphasizes large pictures and important events.

• Yearly, Monthly Navigation

  The Timeline will feature a navigation panel along the right side of the page. This list of years, which can expand to display months, allows users to quickly jump to a spot in their timeline and view their posts from that moment in time. You can also manually scroll up and down through the timeline to search activity by month and year.

• Mobile Interface

  The new mobile interface on the Facebook app will also feature the Timeline re-design.

• Private Log

  The private log stores all your facebook activity so you can choose what to share in your timeline and with whom.

• Apps In Your TImeline

  Apps--including what you're listening to, reading, cooking, watching, etc.--will showcase your interests and activities in digest form so that friends can quickly catch up on what you're into and share with you simultaneously. For example, if you're listening to a song on a Rdio that's synched with Facebook, that activity will appear as an update in your friends' Ticker widget. That friend can then click your update, start listening to the same song, and even chat with you while doing so.

• Release In "A Few Weeks"

  Timeline won't be available to users for "a few weeks," so savor that old profile while you still can (or start to get excited for the new one!). Read more <a href="http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150289612087131" target="_hplink">about the new Facebook at their official blog here</a>.

Comments

[William DeRosa]

11:03 AM on 12/09/2011

And if you need a walk through, we created a video series, step by step how to use the new profile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjaLu83oQxo

[neelkant ekbote]

05:36 AM on 12/09/2011

Finally it rolled out. For more up-to-date timeline features' please visit - www.myfbcover.in
Facebook covers' is probably the most important component of every person’s profile & personally found that we get tons of inspiration and motivation from collection of covers'. They’re the first thing to see when we turn facebook on!
we created awesome covers' for you & have the most number of fans http://www.myfbcover.in/

[dawebstar]

03:09 AM on 12/09/2011

Hope soon it will be available for all, I've developed http://facebookprofilecovers.com where you can get some awesome covers for your timeline.

[jacki650]

07:16 PM on 12/08/2011

I've been waiting for this change for quite awhile now!! I hope I get the change soooon :)

[Nancy Maza]

03:03 PM on 12/08/2011

it looks more grown up and sleeker, I don't think I'll mind the change so much, but phone apps always bug out when a new chage occurs!

[Patrick Haney Jr]

02:10 PM on 12/08/2011

Cant wait!!!!

[katakwi]

04:04 AM on 12/08/2011

How many will read the pages of disclaimers to determine how you data is being used. Here are
legal terms which I quickly found based on. Date of Last Revision: April 26, 2011.
http://www.facebook.com/legal/terms

[mafollett]

11:30 PM on 12/07/2011

If things keep changing I may have to get 'outta there'. I dumped MySpace a long while back and I do not have Twitter. It would take some getting used to but I could live without Facebook. I would still have the option of trading phone numbers with old friends and calling or texting...time will tell.

[Turee1165]

12:14 PM on 12/08/2011

Try this site. I like it.

http://www.anybeat.com/i/4e79e9b3b4ab8d2a8000071a

[njtopman4u]

11:06 PM on 12/07/2011

The more facebook evolves the more it's a way to sell off of our privacy.

It is getting to the point I am going to do away with facebook and these other social websites.

[ahnree]

10:55 PM on 12/07/2011

Hey facebook, ever heard of myspace? that will be you in 5-7 years. a has been. waiting on the next hot thing....

[PELAGIUS2]

10:41 PM on 12/07/2011

A former co worker sent me a Facebook birthday card. Problem is, in order to view the card I had to give the ap my first born male nephew. I thanked him for the lovely card. Which I still haven't looked at. And will not be looking at in the near future. Say when H E double toothpicks freezes over.

[bballmom1414]

10:35 PM on 12/07/2011

I think you should have a choice whether to have it or not, or be a part of this. I wish they would stop changing it. Depending on what it's like, it will be my final straw to go to Google. The changes are getting out of hand. They certainly don't benefit the user.

[akseserizdotcom]

10:29 PM on 12/07/2011

I don't get Facebook. I feel like a peeping tom when I'm on there. Most of the comments are just silly drivel. Most are made by teens or 30 something girls.

[crunchie]

09:54 PM on 12/07/2011

Hey, It's homeland security data mining, they want your info and Zuckerman is helping the corporate world for gain, that's all.

[katakwi]

04:08 AM on 12/08/2011

My take is Zukerman is place there by corporate elite/gov't. Of all the software and talent out why is Zukerman/facebook getting all the publicity? Social networking has been around for decades and Facebook is nothing revolutionary at all.

[srodriguez2002]

09:37 PM on 12/07/2011

the timeline sucks!!! mine has already changed! is there anyway to change it back to the original?