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The new timeline is why I quit FaceBook in December. It creates a badly jumbled view of the information I was really hoping to see -- what's going on with me a

The new timeline is why I quit FaceBook in December. It creates a badly jumbled view of the information I was really hoping to see -- what's going on with me and my friends? I can handle a straight chronological list very easily. This is an interesting answer to the question 'why didn't they stick with the simplest approach?'

AznHisoka 15y ago
Perhaps they're running out of ways to innovate and worthwhile things to do? Facebook, in its core is a very simple product. Most of the work I imagine is in making sure the servers don't crash. Sure everyone and their mom uses it, and it sounds sexy to work there, but actual work you do? Doesn't sound that complicated, cutting-edge or innovative. It's not like they're doing genetic engineering, or self driving cars.
- res0nat0r 15y ago
  I'm sure there will always be interesting engineering problems somewhere to work with when you have a website with 600 million users.
- slig 15y ago
  Figuring out how to use the fuckloads of data that they get either explicitly or via their widgets to sell more ads. Seems rather complicated.
Timothee 15y ago
As for not going with a straight chronological list, I think that really the idea behind Timeline is to take all the information that was put in Facebook and present it in something that is more akin to digital scrapbooking. They want you to have something more personal and emotional so that you're more attached to it. Their ad about it is clear about that: Facebook should be the place where you keep track of your life and expose it (a certain way) to and share it with your friends. For that, you want to highlight a specific picture or event, but still have little anecdotes sprinkled here and there. They want you to go through the Timeline like you'd go through a photo album where you'd have a mix of the big events (graduation, marriage, births, etc.) with the little things, so that you can hear "oh, remember that one? When we went to Disneyland and you fell in the pool…", "you were so mad at him that day! Look at what you wrote on your wall…", etc. Not having just a list makes it a bit more interesting to peruse. It's like going through a shoebox of photos and souvenirs, spread them out and you see some things, not others… I'm not saying they've nailed it, but it's a first version of it and it's an interesting experiment. It's hard to make an interesting photo album by hand, it's even harder to make something semi-automated. As as side-note: The new timeline is why I quit FaceBook in December. I find that interesting since I personally rarely see people's profiles or timelines.
- brlewis 15y ago
  Making a photo collection look interesting automatically is actually really straightforward. I think anyone who spends serious time attacking this problem will arrive at a solution. Use the EXIF timestamp of when each photo was taken. Make a web page for each month, and group photos together by day to make it easy to skim through. Limit the number of photos shown on this page for any given day (put the rest on their own page) and you've automatically got variety. With those two simple organizational steps, viewers of the photo collection are set up for success in quickly finding photos that interest them, assuming there are some.
glhaynes 15y ago
what's going on with me and my friends That's what your feed (i.e. the "main" page) is for, right? The timeline is for when you want to look at just one person's activity... it's basically "WHERE user = 'xyz' ORDER BY entry_date DESC".
bmahmood 15y ago
Agreed. I find it visually frustrating to read two columns simultaneously (going back/forth from left/right sides of the timeline). It's so cluttered I don't ever find myself visiting my own profile anymore. About the only thing I use FB now for is the feed, but then Twitter serves the same function w/ better control over who I want to follow.

AznHisoka 15y ago

Perhaps they're running out of ways to innovate and worthwhile things to do? Facebook, in its core is a very simple product. Most of the work I imagine is in making sure the servers don't crash. Sure everyone and their mom uses it, and it sounds sexy to work there, but actual work you do? Doesn't sound that complicated, cutting-edge or innovative. It's not like they're doing genetic engineering, or self driving cars.

res0nat0r 15y ago
I'm sure there will always be interesting engineering problems somewhere to work with when you have a website with 600 million users.
slig 15y ago
Figuring out how to use the fuckloads of data that they get either explicitly or via their widgets to sell more ads. Seems rather complicated.

Timothee 15y ago

As for not going with a straight chronological list, I think that really the idea behind Timeline is to take all the information that was put in Facebook and present it in something that is more akin to digital scrapbooking. They want you to have something more personal and emotional so that you're more attached to it. Their ad about it is clear about that: Facebook should be the place where you keep track of your life and expose it (a certain way) to and share it with your friends. For that, you want to highlight a specific picture or event, but still have little anecdotes sprinkled here and there. They want you to go through the Timeline like you'd go through a photo album where you'd have a mix of the big events (graduation, marriage, births, etc.) with the little things, so that you can hear "oh, remember that one? When we went to Disneyland and you fell in the pool…", "you were so mad at him that day! Look at what you wrote on your wall…", etc. Not having just a list makes it a bit more interesting to peruse. It's like going through a shoebox of photos and souvenirs, spread them out and you see some things, not others… I'm not saying they've nailed it, but it's a first version of it and it's an interesting experiment. It's hard to make an interesting photo album by hand, it's even harder to make something semi-automated. As as side-note: The new timeline is why I quit FaceBook in December. I find that interesting since I personally rarely see people's profiles or timelines.

brlewis 15y ago
Making a photo collection look interesting automatically is actually really straightforward. I think anyone who spends serious time attacking this problem will arrive at a solution. Use the EXIF timestamp of when each photo was taken. Make a web page for each month, and group photos together by day to make it easy to skim through. Limit the number of photos shown on this page for any given day (put the rest on their own page) and you've automatically got variety. With those two simple organizational steps, viewers of the photo collection are set up for success in quickly finding photos that interest them, assuming there are some.

glhaynes 15y ago

what's going on with me and my friends That's what your feed (i.e. the "main" page) is for, right? The timeline is for when you want to look at just one person's activity... it's basically "WHERE user = 'xyz' ORDER BY entry_date DESC".

bmahmood 15y ago

Agreed. I find it visually frustrating to read two columns simultaneously (going back/forth from left/right sides of the timeline). It's so cluttered I don't ever find myself visiting my own profile anymore. About the only thing I use FB now for is the feed, but then Twitter serves the same function w/ better control over who I want to follow.