How many of you have been overwhelmed by all the new Facebook changes?

You may have heard a lot of Buzz about the new ‘Timeline’ feature that was supposed to launch recently.  This is a stream of information about you: the photos you’ve posted, all of your status updates, the apps you’ve used, and even the locations of places you have visited. The Timeline is intended to be a virtual scrapbook of your life. The announcement of Timeline was met with great deal of excitement from some, and a lot of unhappy dread from others, and was the hottest topic of conversation in the internet community for a while. Now some are wondering what happened and where is the Timeline? According to a Facebook executive “we are still testing with developers – hope to roll it out for wider testing before the end of the year.”

Another change that is stirring the pot is the new permissions settings for ‘Facebook apps’.  Facebook apps now need only ask permission once to share stories on your behalf.  Previously, apps had to ask every time they shared information about you in your profile. Now, the first time you authorize the app, it will tell you what it is going to share about you. If you’re ok with that and accept the terms, the app never has to ask you again.

Another new feature to mention is the ‘Ticker’.  The ticker is a constant feed along the right margin of your page. It is a real-time list of things your friends are posting. The benefit of the Ticker is intended to be a place for all of the small, less consequential updates that you do not necessarily want to see on your main News Feed.

There are a few other changes to be aware of:

‘Subscribers’ are people who sign up to receive your public posts in their news feed. If you’ve enabled this, anyone who adds you as a friend will automatically first become a subscriber. If you confirm the friend request, the person will be elevated to “friend” status. If you turn down the friend request by clicking “Not now” that person will still remain subscribed to your public posts. When you un-friend someone, they will still be subscribed to your public posts. If you want to un-friend someone and prevent them from seeing what you post, you’ll have to also block them.

Surely you have also noticed the ‘Top Story’ in your news feed.  It has the feel of a newspaper: all of your news is in a single stream with the most interesting stories featured at the top.  Have you seen the blue triangles in the upper left of your news feed as if you folded down the corner of your newspaper? Those are new posts that went up since you last logged on.

It may feel as though so many changes at once are overwhelming. Some people like them and some people are annoyed.  How do you feel?  Do you need more on Facebook changes?  Here’s the scoop according to Business 2 Community.

Posted by on October 18, 2011. Read more articles about , or , , .

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