Facebook Single Column Timeline Design Rolls Out
As reported by TheNextWeb, among others, back on October 31st, 2012, Facebook began testing a new Timeline layout with a single column of posts.
And now, the new design just rolled out on my personal profile. Awesome!! No more eyeball ping-pong bouncing back and forth to read content. Presumably, Facebook is still conducting tests on certain profiles. But, my guess is this new format is imminent for many more users. I doubt it’ll take as long to switch from the old layout to the Timeline layout as that was a major overhaul. (Read comments on this new layout on my Facebook post here).
I’ve marked up a screenshot below with an overview of all the most prominent changes. If you know of any additional ones, please do share in the comments below! To view the image full size, just click on it.
Organize and hide profile sections
I rather like that you can now organize various sections of your profile as you wish. That is, except for About, Friends and Photos – they have to stay in place in that order. I was surprised to see many sections resurrected that I’d long forgotten about… like Books and Notes. Fortunately, it’s easy to hide sections that you don’t want displayed.
Tweak your cover image
It’s possible many lovely custom designed cover images will need to be altered slightly now given a) your name is now in white OVER the cover image, and b) your profile picture sits slightly lower. The overall dimensions of the cover image remain the same: 851px wide by 315px tall. However, the cut out for the profile photo is now 17px from the left edge and 64px from the bottom. (Previously, it was 23px from the left and 104px from the bottom; fan pages remain as those dimensions… for now!).
Followers
As reported by Mashable, among others, on December 5th, Facebook announced that it would be changing the label of “Subscribers” to “Followers.” Just makes more sense, really. A Follower can see your personal profile posts in their news feed that you publish to PUBLIC. (FYI, anyone can see any public content on your profile anyway. Following someone just means you’re more likely to see their posts in your news feed). Basically the same as a fan (Like) on your fan page. Except, ahem, it’s not 100% of your Followers or Fans (or Friends) who see your posts in their news feed. That’s where promoted posts come in. We’ll leave that for another blog post.
Highlights?
I am stumped by the new “Highlight” feature. Previously, starring a post would make it appear “double wide” across both columns. Now, the post just gets a little bookmark flag in the top right corner and nothing else seems to happen. My guess is there is a section coming called Highlights where all your starred posts would appear for quick access. Thoughts?
New single column Facebook Timeline layout – click to enlarge
Fan pages next?
I predict that before long, fan pages (Business Timelines) will also get the new single-column layout.
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Search please!
I don’t know about you, but my most wished-for feature now is a rock solid SEARCH… and not necessarily for Facebook sitewide (though that’ll be nice when it comes), but I’m talking about the ability to search for content on my fan page and others’ fan pages. You know, like a good search feature on every blog on the web?? 😉 Just sayin!
Do you have the new single-column Facebook Timeline layout yet? (Personal profile). Whether you have the new design or not, what are your thoughts on the features (as illustrated in the screenshot above)? Please share below:
Thank you for the information, I love surprises but not with software! Cheers
Thank you for a great post! As a brand manager who’s been using the Highlight feature often, I wonder how the change will tun out. Also, any ideas on impact on mobile devices?
Mari has anyone else had an update if this change is coming or not? Wouldn’t it be grand if Facebook gave us notices?!!! We can dream right?!
My thought on highlights is that this has to do with the timeline past posts – if you go to a past period via the years / months menu, at first you only see highlights (or so I have found) and then you have to choose to view all posts, so that would remain with the new layout as well. But they may have some other plans too.
Thanks for the heads up!
I’ve been using socialbakers, hootsuite and socialkik to increase my followers and fans.
I liked the two-column format, but will get used to this. Not a huge deal. I’m not a fan of the white letters for names, as it means that images will need to be dark for contrast. What if I want to post a snow pic? I like being able to drag to organize categories. And you’re right– a good search feature would be nice.
I can say for sure Search in Google+ is one of the most valuable tools that I use daily. Having a search function in FB would be most useful! Thanks for the update info!
Really not diggin’ the new tabbed feature. Why? The thumbnails are what
people like to see and now people have to click the dropdown menu where
“More” is to find stuff. The thumbnail grabbed their attention, now
they have to dig for it. But they don’t know what they want because
they’re only there for a few secs. It’s a force to do paid for
advertising with a link directly to that particular page on your Fan
Page or Personal Profile
I was wondering if that was the case. Thumbnails were the last dregs of the landing page which was great for conversions. Too bad.
I’m pleased FB is going back to the single column timeline. The duo is way too confusing. I struggle with working out my own timeline, never mind other people’s!
If I can’t pin posts to the top or highlight to fit full width, then the timeline frequency of posts will be less so that each post is equally impactful. Nice look to the tabbed navigation bar.
Well said, Ari. I’m not quite getting what the Highlight is about… yet. Facebook has been buggy and shifting back and forth between old Timeline and new over the past day or so. I thought I saw all my Highlights as double wide at the top at one refresh. We’ll see!