With so many users giving mixed reviews about Facebook’s Timeline, Tania Gupta, an account manager at Socialize shared her professional opinion with Gulf News.
“From the perspective of being professionals we recognise that the new Facebook Timeline allows for a lot of creative space for visual representation, be it personal or corporate,” she said.
Agreeing with many users, Tania said that many have started using the cover image and profile picture very creatively. “They say that images speak louder than words and what a better way to tell someone about yourself than through images,” she said.
With users still experimenting with the different applications on the Timeline layout, many are unaware that the Facebook Timeline allows its users to be a lot more personal.
“Facebook users need to recognise that Facebook Timeline allows them to be able to create their own little autobiographies, ones that are connected to those they know and care about,” she said.
Despite many users complaining about the settings on Timeline, the changes on Facebook haven’t affected their ability to control their privacy or share content, she added. While the average user is only beginning to understand the impact of the Timeline layout, people will take time to warm up to any new type of technology or convention, Tania feels.
“Never judge a book by its cover. New editions for books come out with new covers — the same logic applies to Facebook,” she said.
With many questioning if making the Timeline change mandatory on all profiles was a bad idea, she thinks that the changes on Facebook just add another layer to the meaning of being ‘social’. “The Timeline isn’t really a road bump in Facebook’s journey over and beyond the corridors of Harvard,” she said.
Steve Jobs has in the past, been known to say: “People don’t know what they want, until you show it to them,” Gupta said. The Timeline, she reckons, is Facebook’s way of telling its worldwide community, “Hey folks, Facebook can’t be what it is without you!”
