Facebook Timeline – The Aftermath

What’s All the Fuss About?

Now that the dust has finally settled, it’s time to take stock of how Facebook’s new Timeline “medicine” has gone down.
Precisely one hundred days ago, the new Facebook profile design became mandatory – much to the chagrin of a huge forty to fifty percent of Facebook users.
Timeline structures users profiles to include images, photos and events from their entire Facebook life history. The new profile basically tells a person’s life story in pictures. It leaves all posted information viewable by, not only family and friends, but also the entire online community.
Understandably, this became a stickler for the Timeline opponents. Having become accustomed to the quirky and sometimes unclear Facebook privacy policy, now they would have to learn the idiosyncrasies concerning the new profile settings.

It’s Time to Take Stock

A few members have taken exception to having pictures of them, in less than compromising situations, plastered across their homepage. They were confronted by the uncomfortable fact that Facebook was preparing to unveil parts of their lives - parts that they would have preferred to keep private.
Going forward, they were going to have to re-think every time they posted their status or uploaded a photo to their facebook page. Why? Because there was a good chance that the content was going to end up on their timeline.
Of course there are ways to maintain a greater level of privacy. However, having to compartmentalize each and every aspect of your daily interactions with people can become slightly overwhelming.

Trusting Facebook Is One Thing – Friends Are Another

Of course there are ways to control who sees what on your Facebook page. However, wading through the mountains for information on your Timeline can be a little daunting.
Even with the strictest privacy controls, the knowledge of how much you had to drink last night will still be left in the hands of your facebook friends. And how much you trust your friends may be the real crux of the matter.

Winners and Losers

With every change, there are usually winners and losers. If a sizeable amount of facebook users saw themselves as losers, Facebook and Facebook App developers were laughing all the way to the bank.
Viddy, a Facebook App launched in April 2011, was one of the winners. The App is similar to Instagram but for video content. It allows users to create, produce and share videos with friends and acquaintances.
Since its inception Viddy had racked up respectable sixty thousand users. However with the launch of Facebook’s Timeline App, active users have skyrocketed up to more than 1.7 million per month! It is also signing up new members at a rate of three hundred thousand a month.
Some other Apps to benefit from Timeline are Pinterest, iHeartRadio, Foodspotting, Flixster, and Diamond Dash. All of these companies have seen a sharp increase in usage and signups as a result of Facebook’s Timeline.

In The Money

Facebook is supposed to go public sometime in May or June of 2012. However with the recent purchase of Instagram and a large amount of Microsoft patents, the public offering could see further delays.
The valuation of the company is also proving to be tricky. Revenue for the first quarter of 2012 was $1.06 billion. That’s up forty-five percent from 2011’s first quarter numbers, but down from the $1.3 billion reported in the fourth quarter of 2011.
In any event, the IPO is set to turn approximately one thousand Facebook employees into millionaires. And when all is said and done, Facebook’s Timeline is here to stay and the company is on track to keep on breaking records, where social media businesses are concerned.