When I read about FB Timeline (and watched the trailer), I was concurrently impressed and uneasy. Impressed because it's an elegant way to deal with a problem

When I read about FB Timeline (and watched the trailer), I was concurrently impressed and uneasy. Impressed because it's an elegant way to deal with a problem that didn't exist until recently...how to make old user info useful and re-relevant. Until they had so many multi-year users there was no need to revisit old data. Uneasy because I've seen this before. Essentially, they've created a version of the Officer/Enlisted Record Brief (ie - US Army personnel dossier). Surely, there's nothing wrong with creating a consistent, repeatable format for understanding people and their experiences. It saves time and reduces effort required to pass judgment. In two specific ways, though, I found dossiers inadequate undesirable: (1) A record brief never accurately captured the skills and experiences of the person being considered. A life is so vast (and variable!) that it can't possibly be captured in a proscribed format. I guess this abuts my general unease with FB as a whole. I felt that I would never be able to capture myself through my profile/pics/etc and didn't want to be judged by a poor facsimile. Status updates and the increased ability to interact with friends and family tempered this unease. Now they've gone a step further towards formalizing a life's structure. (2) The ouputs could drive the inputs. Because FB inevitably has to be selective on what can be recorded in any type of dossier (standardization being the key), FBer behavior might be modified to match those fields. Army dossiers drive Army people to focus on activities and experiences that look impressive on the dossier (awards, deployments, schools). FB Timeline is an order of magnitude removed, but if it catches on and becomes the de facto way that users are judged by family/friends/employers, the possibility of driving user behavior certainly exists. Yes, I know that FB is voluntary.