Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced two key features for the social network at the annual f8 developer conference in San Francisco, California. Timeline and an updated version of Open Graphs are expected to revolutionize Facebook moving forward and change the way we share things with friends.
The first is Timeline which was created to address a need to share older status updates and other important events in your life. Current status updates get "pushed off a cliff" and are lost forever once they leave your profile.
Zuckerberg said the original Facebook profile represented the first five minutes of your life if you were to introduce yourself to someone new and your stream consisted of the next 15 minutes in your story. Timeline is described as the next step in telling your personal life story.
With Timeline, your entire life story can be told on a single page, dating back as far as you would like. The page layout resembles a personal blog with a large cover photo at the top followed by important updates listed in reverse chronological order as you scroll down through the page. Facebook automatically selects the most important updates and highlights them with a blue dot. Grey dots represent hidden updates that might not be as important.
Users can arrange their Timeline however they see fit by removing certain updates or highlighting others that might be important to them. Various filters can be applied to Timeline such as photos or maps of where you have been. Timeline will be rolling out progressively over the next couple of months.
The next major feature is an update to Open Graphs which brings a new class of apps that encompass multiple features in an effort to better link friends. Open Graphs allow you to share things like music, movies and news using the new ticker on the right side of Facebook in real time in what the company calls real time serendipity.
As was speculated last month and leaked yesterday, one of these new Open Graph features involves music.
Facebook has teamed with more than a dozen streaming music providers such as Spotify, Rdio and Vevo to bring music listening and sharing to Facebook. You will be able to see what your friends are listening to in the ticker and furthermore, you can tune in live to listen to exactly what they are hearing.
But music isn't the only service that is getting the Open Graph treatment. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings took the stage to announce that his company was just one of nearly two dozen video providers that were launching Facebook apps designed to share what users were watching with their friends. News outlets, game developers and lifestyle app creators are also joining the Open Graph network. Zuckerberg believes this will be the next big way to spread the word about varying types of media socially.
Media apps for Open Graph are launching right now while other apps such as lifestyle and games will slowly be released alongside Timeline.