Facebook officially took the “beta” label off its much-publicized Timeline
this evening, but it’s rolling out the new feature gradually. New
Zealand is currently the only country to get Timeline, the company said
in a blog post this evening. Other regions will get it in the “near future.”
Facebook first unveiled Timeline
in early September, and quickly provided the means for developers and
curious users to enable the feature. A more general release was planned
for later that month, but it never came, ostensibly to address technical
issues and privacy concerns having to do with the software.
Timeline, you may recall, is a way to illustrate your entire life —
not just the part you’ve been living on Facebook since you joined — in a
graphical way. One of the common criticisms of Facebook is that it’s
almost entirely concerned with the here and now, no matter how mundane.
Major life events, though chronicled, are quickly pushed to the bottom
of an individual’s feed and forgotten.
Timeline brings those events back, mapping them on a graphic that
tells the story of a user’s life, from birth to present day. Although
the idea was praised widely, new privacy concerns were raised with the
feature, one of them being that it was visible from the Timeline when
you “unfriended” certain people (Facebook has said this was a glitch that’s been corrected).
Timeline is one of Facebook’s most exciting new features, and we’re
sure users will flock to it as it’s rolled out officially. Check out
some amazing Timeline designs in the gallery below, and share your own
in the comments
1. Janet Medina
2. Ekkapong Techawongthaworn
3. Tom Lambie
4. Jeremy Bronson
5. Travis Keith
6. Niels Langeveld
7. Umair Latif
8. Andy Hirsch
9. Robert Falken
10. Mark Spangler
BONUS: Mashable's Matthew Silverman!
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