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| The All-New Timeline for Pages- Like our new Facebook Page By the Way |
People are still abuzz about the switch to timeline on people profiles, but on March 30th all Facebook pages from businesses, to Celebrities, to Political Parties will switch to timeline. The new design is part of an effort by Facebook to unify their products, and create a more user-friendly experience. Some people are not so happy about this switch though.
I turned to Facebook to ask several people their thoughts on timeline, and found that it’s about an even split between those who like it, and those who don’t. Joe Steiger of Joesteiger.com responded to the question saying “The new Facebook Timeline for pages completely destroys the tabs aspect that many brands have used vigorously for promotion and much more”. It is true that using tabs has become a popular method among brands. I have seen several promotions from companies such as American Airlines that were built using custom graphics on custom tabs in the old page layout. Navigation was a breeze, and each brand was able to create their own unique items to suit their needs. This branding option seems to have been eliminated.
Jack Porter pointed out that the custom branding opportunities presented by items such as cover photo were a huge benefit. It is nice to be able to have basically, a header representing your brand on top of your page. Chris Pirillo, founder of the popular blog at Lockergnome.com weighed in on the conversation too saying that it doesn’t really matter because people will adapt. “Everybody complains about change. They’ll get used to this change (and the next one), too”.
In the end I have to agree with Chris. People complain about each and every slight change because humans are habitual and do not like to stray from their daily routine. But eventually they get used to it. And while it may seem annoying that your favorite websites change, I ask you, Where would we be if everything on the web stayed the same? We would be watching videos in Realplayer at 360P… after hours of downloading. So here’s to you, change. I’m glad you exist.