Facebook debuts cleaned up Timeline

Information will be split into columns, users given more control over content that is displayed

Fresh off the heels of the debut of its redesigned News Feed, Facebook has taken the next step and made some big changes to Timeline as well.

The new changes, which were revealed Wednesday, fix some big problems that I have personally have had with Timeline since it was first launched in December 2011.

While I always thought Timeline was a pretty good idea, since searching for old posts was next to impossible with the way Facebook used to work, the layout has always been a disaster. Instead of putting everything into a single column, Facebook, some unknown reason, thought that posts should be split between two columns, making it extremely difficult to read.

Facebook acknowledged that problem today, and says that it has now been fixed, with the two columns separated out for different types of content.

The right-hand column will be dedicated solely to posts put up by the user or their friends. The left side of the screen will show recent activity, such as photos that users have posted, music they have listened to and games they have played.

A big part of the designed Timeline has to do with luring in developers, as Facebook has also made it more app friendly by giving users the ability to manually pick which apps they want displayed on their Timeline. 

"We're making content from apps more prominent by giving them sections in the left column of timeline and on the About tab," said Facebook.

"People can add things to the new books, music, movies, TV, and fitness sections manually or by choosing to include content from the apps they use."

In the About tab, a new Edit Sections menu lets users select which apps and types of content they want to appear on their Timeline and About page. All a user has to do is click the “Add to Profile” button on their app section page.

For example, a user can include their Instagram photo stream as a section. Or they can share books they have read on Goodreads. It allows users to customize their page according to their interests, and the types of content they want to have displayed.

For people who love movies, they can add their favorites to their movies section, or use apps like Flixster and Netflix to share what they are watching:

Facebook previously tried giving users more control over their pages, allowing them to choose where they wanted each app to appear on their page. Facebook eventually killed that idea, and has since made profiles more uniform. This new updates gives users some of that control back, but still allows Facebook to maintain control of where things are placed on the page.

Facebook has been testing out redesigned versions of Timeline as far back as December.

(Image source: https://developers.facebook.com)