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Will You Put Your Whole Life on Facebook With the Timeline Feature?

Facebook users to share a whole lot of information

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The Timeline feature Facebook announced at f8 is blowing a lot of people’s minds. “Tell the whole story of your life on a single page,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said as he announced the feature.

Would you share your whole life on your Facebook wall? Let us know in the comments.

That, in a nutshell, is what the timeline is all about. Sure, it will feature your recent Facebook activity, classic “wall” material, and app-related content. There’s a lot of cool stuff happening there, but the timeline itself goes back to when you were born, containing as much information as you want to share.

It looks like you can add content extending even before your birth (notice the +. You can drag that down and add more things, entering when something happened):

Facebook timeline feature  

However, if you try to enter something for a date before your birthday, it doesn’t let you. It just tells you you weren’t born yet, which apparently eliminates pictures of your mom’s pregnancy, and any pictures of you as a fetus. Maybe they’ll enable this later.

Post birth, you pretty much have free reign.

You can add health-related events:

Facebook timeline feature

Facebook timeline feature 

Other life events:

Facebook timeline feature 
Facebook timeline feature
Facebook timeline feature  
Facebook timeline 

You can add content about when you lose a loved one:

Facebook timeline feature

The point is, you can pretty much add anything from your life starting with birth, which means a lot of people are going to be spending a whole lot of time adding things from their lives. Or at least that appears to be Facebook’s goal.

I have no reason to believe that tons of people won’t be adding everything they can think of to make their lives look more interesting than the next guy’s. You’re going to look pretty lame if you only have a few things and everyone else is climbing mountains, sky diving and meeting presidents.

Imagine the data. Imagine the ad targeting possibilities.

Imagine that Facebook is around for the long haul, and new people are born into the world where this is just the norm. It is a pretty interesting time indeed.

All of that said, some things you might be thinking include: I wonder how many people will get fired from their jobs. I wonder how many more divorces will get blamed on Facebook. I wonder how many lives will this ruin.

Don’t worry. “You have complete control over everything on your timeline. You have control of what’s there and you also control who can see everything,” said Zuckerberg during the keynote.

Well, users have had a lot of control over what they share on Facebook in the past, but that hasn’t stopped all of those things from happening. Tread carefully. By carefully, I mean with common sense. It may not be a good idea to post about the first time you used an illegal narcotic or the affair you had a few years ago. Not that you’ve done either of those things.

If you want to sign up for the timeline feature, you can do so at the bottom of this page. It’s supposed to be rolling out over the next few weeks anyway. Greg Kumparak has a nice walkthrough on how to go about getting the timeline early if you’re a developer.

How much of your life will you share with the world? Let us know.

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There are 79 Comments. Add Yours.
  1. Yeah not it’s very interesting I will eventually find the time to set my timeline up.

    • It should be fun trying to remember all of the events one wants to include.

      • I will remember all my life events on my personal private diary not on facebook :)

  2. Facebook is paving the future of the Social world. I am all for change and it is what it is!! Can we really control any of it? NOT!!

    • I guess we’ll soon find out.

    • John

      No – it’s the view of FB’s view of social media – I’ve already noticed that the interactions on FB are way down – the novelty has worn thin and people are at last wising up to the paper thin security. I deleted my account but because of family pressures I had to re-sign but no personal info almost no posts – basically it’s a waste of time account but keeps the family happy

  3. MisterWrong

    10:00 I held up a bank (here is my crew who knocked over the place)
    10:30 Follow the Foursquare track the show our get away route
    11:00 here is the booty! (see picture)
    12:00 Here is all the bling we bought and the party we had with the money

    ….. you know this is totally going to happen

    • Most likely something along those lines.

  4. You’re going to look pretty lame if you only have a few things and everyone else is climbing mountains, sky diving and meeting presidents?

  5. Honestly, I would give a NO. I maintain a facebook account to connect with my friends but I seldom post activities on my wall. I just couldn’t imagine having the whole world see my entire life through the looking glass called social media.

    Hornby railways

  6. I think it is not force us to post all the happening in our life “It’s just an option”. I upgrade my profile tomorrow and my first impression is “Awesome” but I noticed that the loading speed became slower.

  7. I can’t think yet about the implications. While some people may see it as a way to get a better knowledge about their connections on Facebook, some may see it as a violation of privacy.

    I have not yet tried it but you have just given me a push to try it out. I will later come here and post my final opinion if you still have this on.

    Thanks.

  8. Herb

    what will l be sharing? nothing, enough rubbish on facebook as it is.They won’t let you put pics of the baby in mummy’s tummy?, well perhaps they can stop the idiot teen mothers from currently uploading these pre birth photo’s… Who the hell is interested..Im now off to Google+ looks good.. then i will invite all my friends to join…As for Facebook ‘Its Dieing…. Forever altering the set-up, don’t know where you are half the time….

  9. Nancy Keane

    Goodness no!!!

  10. Kishor Meswani

    What can be + or – factors of such exposure need to be carefully assessed.

  11. I won’t put even a good deal of my life on Facebook or anywhere else online. For one thing, there’s probably no more than 2 people in the world that interested in that much information about me. LOL! For another, I’d like to at least pretend I still have some privacy. I think it’s possible to be personable online without being to personal. That’s how I hope to be.

    It will be interesting to see how many people use the timeline and what kind of information they put on there. I’m guessing younger people will share more. And perhaps celebrities will use it for publicity.

  12. matt

    Contrary to the other comments, I am looking forward to this, so I can share what has been happening with my children. Privacy is always a concern, but that would true of almost all mediums used.

    Matt

    • John

      hope you get the kid’s buy-in and a signed release, FB is anti security

  13. Seems this could be an novel way to promote business interests. Leave out the personal stuff and just log upbeat success. Contracts, conventions, awards etc. Wonder how that would go down?

  14. My life’s history is none of your business. This is over the top for me. I quit Facebook a long time ago. I can’t believe that people are wasting their precious time on this.

    Why not write an auto biography instead. If your life is so interesting it will be a best seller on the open market. Otherwise it is only feeding an invasive marketing machine.

    • I agree Bob :)

    • John

      absolutely

  15. Jeff

    Facebook is a collection of data and information that most people don’t really care about; like “making dinner for the family” ~ yeah, thanks for the update!
    Government and corporations on the other hand love all the information people stupidly post about themselves… Facebook CEO Zuckerberg even refers to users as Dumb F#&ks (http://gawker.com/5636765/facebook-ceo-admits-to-calling-users-dumb-fucks).
    But there will be lots of people entering in all their details going back to birth because they think the entire world cares. What will they get for it? Will others actually read through all of it? Maybe a potential date would.
    What is certain is that it will help companies target advertising designed in an irresistible fashion (based on a computer generated psych profile) to the dumb users who actually enter all this information on facebook.
    It will also be appreciated by Google! <a href="Facebook is a collection of data and information that most people don't really care about; like "making dinner for the family" ~ yeah, thanks for the update!
    Government and corporations on the other hand love all the information people stupidly post about themselves… Facebook CEO Zuckerberg even refers to users as Dumb F#&ks.
    But there will be lots of people entering in all their details going back to birth because they think the entire world cares. What will they get for it? Will others actually read through all of it? Maybe a potential date would.
    What is certain is that it will help companies target advertising designed in an irresistible fashion (based on a computer generated psych profile) to the dumb users who actually enter all this information on facebook.
    It will also be appreciated by Google! http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/how-google-dominates-us/?pagination=false“>Google’s in the process of learning how to read your mind

  16. Maybe I’ll just do a basic timeline, nothing much different that I have already put on Facebook, such as where I studied, worked, etc… could be good for business (like somebody pointed out), such as new product launched, awards, etc. We can control how much we want to share and allow others to see, so ultimately it is in our hands, just like it is now. It is on us to educate ourselves how to show or not show what we want. Facebook is free for us to use, so we should not complain about it so much. (and no, I don’t like everything on FB, if I sound like it… I just choose what I like, and ignore or disable what I don’t like)

    • John

      that’s what LinkedIn is for – professional business stuff – not FB who will scam everything

      • Alison

        Yes, good point. I prefer LinkedIn for business.

    • you are when people click your name it takes them to your website :)

  17. well people already tell there whole life stories daily on FB nothing new

  18. Garison

    Why would I publicly announce how boring my life has been?

  19. Seems that that is all it is to me, a way for Facebook, and third party companies to come to your page and get all the targeting advertising they need from you. This is a feature you can keep. Bring back Facebook the way it was. I already have all the info about my life somewhere else. That’s the point of Blogs.

  20. No. No. No. Ridiculous. Absolutely not.

  21. ron

    What! Are you f***king crazy. Get my info and some nitwit will get it. Put back the old facebook.Simple

  22. Who has the time for this great adventure? Those of us Fuddy Duddys at 60 or more? And, for what purpose?

    Though, I can see for “Pages” on projects and events – this would be very advantageous in marketing. For that purpose, Timeline is brilliant!

    • Pat

      hey…not all of us 60+s are fuddy duddys :) I have long refused to go on FB because of the whole id thing – plus i don’t see the point really..but amazing how many people have tried to drag me on there to look at their pics mainly – they won’t just email them or write. Has to be on FB. I don’t get that! Maybe i am a FD.

      • Apple

        Long live the Fuddy Duddies!!!!1

  23. No. 1st: Waste of time. 2: No real guarantee of privacy. Talk about setting yourself up for serious identity theft. Doesn’t anyone out there realize the sheer stupidity of having every single thing about you listed for the public’s view? I guess people really don’t know how to make friends any more. Sad.

  24. Rick

    No way in hell would I do that…Why, you ask…because Facebook will sell that info to the highest bidder…

  25. Erik Lindquist

    no, not today, not ever.
    I am a Certified Fraud Examiner and I shudder to think how this information may be used by unscrupulous individuals.
    I advise EVERYONE to avoid this feature unless they want to make new very unwanted friends.

  26. Lois

    Wow how stupid is this. The idiots at Facebook need to have their heads examined!

  27. I think that this is what will bring facebook down to a few millions users or less, big Mistake, my whole family and friends are very disappointed with this feature and are ready to move on to google plus, I think facebook just announce the losing millions of users feature.

  28. Now this is taking it to far. I would never put something so personal out in the open like that. I hope this new idea fails.

  29. expect me to use this heavily (jus don’t rely on the data) LOL….i’m gonna put in some absolutely ridiculous info, jus wait & see, already trying to find it, is it there yet? help me find it.

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