Facebook's Timeline effect: Past catches up with all

Whether you like it or not, Facebook Time-line, a new profile layout, will go live February 1. This transition has been made compulsory for all of Facebook's 800 million users, including the 40 million from India. And, although Timeline was announced in September last year, it has been in the beta stage and unavailable to many. But, in a blog post, Facebook announced its users will have seven days to try the new layout. "Over the next few weeks, everyone will get Timeline," reads the Facebook Blog. "When you get it, you will have seven days to preview what's there now. This gives you a chance to add or hide what you want before anyone else sees it."

Timeline allows Facebook users to store and share videos, photos and posts of the most memorable moments of their lives in a year-by-year format.

Several Facebook users from India expressed mixed feelings about the new profile page look. Aneeta Limaye, an IT professional, says, "While everything on Timeline can be found in the current version of Facebook, too, I am told photos and posts well hidden previously will now be much easier to view. I will have to probably delete a bunch of these shared between select friends, which are embarrassing."

While Timeline does not expose anything that was not available for sharing in the past, but it does allow jumping to older material easily. For instance, a private party photo posted two years ago to a small group of friends would become easily accessible to relatives, bosses and others who may have been added as friends since then.

PAST NOT PERFECT, PRESENT TENSE

* If you don't want to wait for the official alert, enable Timeline and curate profile 

* Keep private phone numbers, emails, posts and photos not meant for public viewing

* To keep your old posts private, go to 'Privacy Settings', and limit audience for past posts. Options like 'Limit Old Post' will ensure that photo albums are seen by a select group of friends (that you can choose) 

* It's important to note that Facebook does not change the privacy settings of your old posts but retains the privacy settings from when you originally posted it. That means, while today you may limit wall posts to just your ‘Limited Profile’ list, posts from years ago could be ‘Friends only’ or even public, since the ‘Limited Profile’ option did not exist at the time.

* Once you have activated Timeline, click the ‘Activity Log’ button that appears under your cover photograph (the large landscape picture). From here, you can use the drop-down menu to track every type of post or event that has appeared on wall. From this view, you can see who can currently watch a particular item by clicking on the gear icon next to the post. You can also click the circle icon next to that, to ‘star’ it on Timeline, hide it from Timeline, delete the post entirely or change the date

The world's largest online social network recently unveiled more than 60 new apps that let users share the tiniest details of their lives. Facebook users can already share the articles they are reading through Yahoo! News and other news-sharing services. They now have 'sharing' apps that cover a range of topics, including food, fashion, travel and reading. Facebook calls it "frictionless sharing." That said, users can limit the information shared by these apps when they sign up, just as they can limit which friends can see their other updates.

Micro-blogging site, Twitter, too, was full of tweets from irate users, criticising the move. Mehreen Kasana tweeted, "I have got just a week to clear away or hide my social skeletons on Facebook." Another freelance writer, Nimish Dubey, wrote, "Go ahead, Facebook, make Timeline mandatory for all. Give me the reason I need to move to Google+."

Users protesting the forcing of Timeline on them have created several Facebook pages that go by titles such as 'Timeline Sucks', 'Deactivate FB Timeline' or 'I hate Timeline'. "We, the users, would like the Timeline feature to be optional," announces 'Timeline Sucks' on its welcome page.

"Post Timeline, profiles will become all-you-can-view buffets for casual voyeurs. Load someone's Timeline and you'll see months of status updates, photos and more displayed chronologically. I don't want to tell my life story to random strangers. Why can't Facebook give me an option for that?" wonders 18-year-old Anika Shastry. She insists Facebook has transformed "from a service that makes you happier into a service that makes advertisers happier."

Shastry's father, a 47-year old bank employee, who recently signed on to the social network on his daughter's insistence, says, "I am not so tech-savvy and am really concerned about the number of pictures, posts, comments, etc. I will have to go through in seven days. I have no desire to post full online biographies on Facebook or elsewhere."

Facebook, however, seems to be showing zero inclination to make Timeline an opt-in feature.