Facebook Timeline launches in New Zealand

Now in excess of 800 million users globally, Facebook continues to dominate the social networking world with no signs of slowing down. As it’s grown, so too has its demands for user information, to which the general Facebook population has happily submitted, adjusting the odd privacy setting to compensate.

Now the latest change, Facebook Timeline is here and New Zealanders are the guinea pigs for the ever-growing empire.

There’s nothing revolutionary about the new feature, it basically arranges the content posted over the last few years (since 2007 for me) in an online narrative, similar to the traditional scrapbook. While the concept of scrapbooking has existing for centuries, the idea of publishing an online summary of one’s life was previously limited to the realm of the blogging community.

The key change that could potentially make a few people uneasy is the ability to quickly gather information about a person from a specific period of time. While old photos and content have always been available, users previously had to go to some effort to look back at a friend's Facebook history.

Facebook has countered the ‘stalker utopia’ claims by saying information will be better organised than the previous format, which focused on the most recent activity, not necessarily the most important.

“The photos of your graduation get replaced by updates about what you had for breakfast,” says the Facebook blog.

After using the new Timeline features, it’s quickly apparent that Facebook is making an effort to record life’s significant moments, but those less significant moments are also present. For example, a less important image of me showing my butt at an 80’s party in 2007 can be easily found by any of my friends. While I’m not particularly bothered by this, future political leaders and celebrities be warned – your past is now even more likely to haunt you.

The new settings are great for organising older information and tracking life's key moments, however individuals need to be aware of the reputational risks they open themselves up to with each post.

Our resident Faceboook junkie, Will Seal has been using the beta version for the last few weeks - his blog describes the pros and cons of the new feature.

Facebook Timeline in the news:

CNN - Facebook begins rolling out Timeline feature

NBR - New Facebook profile Timeline available to New Zealanders first

Stuff - Facebook trials timeline in NZ 

NZ Herald - Kiwis get Facebook's new Timeline first