Home
Loading Carousel Data, Please wait ..


More News
Get news delivered to you
BYTE Technologists

BYTE Categories
BYTE Newsletter
Keep up with all the BYTE News and Reviews

Subscribe
News > Social Networking

Facebook's Timeline Soon Will Be Mandatory

| Dino Londis, BYTE | January 27, 2012 12:45 PM

Category: Smartphones, Social Networking

Facebook announced Tuesday that it is switching all users to Timeline "over the next few weeks." Timeline is Facebook's new interface to better display all of a user's posting and pictures that are mostly sitting dormant on its servers.

More Insights

Webcasts

More >>

White Papers

More >>

Reports

More >>

Among other things, Timeline has a slider bar that starts with the day you created the account and runs all the way up to today. The timestamp of a post puts the events in chronological order. Users are also prompted to insert events such as graduations, car purchases, and vacations to better tell their story. Other apps will allow them to post on topics such as how many miles they've run that day, the movies they quote, and the songs they have on repeat.

When you get Timeline, you'll have seven days to preview your data and hide specific items. After the seventh day you can still hide posts and photos, but others might have seen and copied them by then. Timeline doesn't expose anything that wasn't on your Facebook page already, but it might bring to the forefront items that were previously buried.

Soon users who are not using Timeline will get an announcement at the top of their Facebook homepage informing them that they are being converted to the new interface. If you want to do it sooner, you can visit Introducing Timeline and click on "Get Timeline."

No doubt this will cause problems for some Facebook users. For example, college students who began posting more responsibly in hopes of impressing perspective employers will now need to revisit their entire history. Even where a user's photos and comments were thoughtfully posted, incriminating data could come in other forms such as check-ins. An automated check-in via your iPhone might contradict the story you gave to HR when you called in sick. Try explaining how you got a badge at Starbucks, when you should have been home with pneumonia. HR might perform a comparison of your Timeline to days you called in sick. With all that searchable history, HR now has a more compelling reason to visit your Facebook page and, while it's there, it might discover things about you that you thought were long forgotten.

Now would also be a good time for users to improve their Facebook password complexity. Because HR might be spending more time there, having your Facebook account hacked could conceivably cost your job. Facebook's password policy is weak and according to Splashdata, the most commonly used password is "password". The second most common password is "123456". A password should be at least 10 characters in length and should include caps and numbers. The longer the better. Make it a phrase so it's easy to remember.



Related Reading

News

Most Popular

Commentary

On the Web



Currently we allow the following HTML tags in comments:

Single tags

These tags can be used alone and don't need an ending tag.

<br> Defines a single line break

<hr> Defines a horizontal line

Matching tags

These require an ending tag - e.g. <i>italic text</i>

<a> Defines an anchor

<b> Defines bold text

<big> Defines big text

<blockquote> Defines a long quotation

<caption> Defines a table caption

<cite> Defines a citation

<code> Defines computer code text

<em> Defines emphasized text

<fieldset> Defines a border around elements in a form

<h1> This is heading 1

<h2> This is heading 2

<h3> This is heading 3

<h4> This is heading 4

<h5> This is heading 5

<h6> This is heading 6

<i> Defines italic text

<p> Defines a paragraph

<pre> Defines preformatted text

<q> Defines a short quotation

<samp> Defines sample computer code text

<small> Defines small text

<span> Defines a section in a document

<s> Defines strikethrough text

<strike> Defines strikethrough text

<strong> Defines strong text

<sub> Defines subscripted text

<sup> Defines superscripted text

<u> Defines underlined text

BYTE encourages readers to engage in spirited, healthy debate, including taking us to task. However, BYTE moderates all comments posted to our site, and reserves the right to modify or remove any content that it determines to be derogatory, offensive, inflammatory, vulgar, irrelevant/off-topic, racist or obvious marketing/SPAM. BYTE further reserves the right to disable the profile of any commenter participating in said activities.

Disqus Tips To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy.
COMMENTS
Tune In to BYTE
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Newsletter RSS
Related Webcasts
Whitepapers
whitepaper
CIO Strategies for Consumerization: The Future of Enterprise Mobile Computing
In this paper you will learn the five trends shaping the future of enterprise mobility. Learn how the rise of social media as a business application, the lurring between work and home, the emergence of new mobile devices, the demand for tech savvy employees and changing expectations of corporate IT will fundamentally change the workplace.
whitepaper
Media Tablets in the Enterprise
In a survey of more than 1,700 information workers (iWorkers) in North America, notebooks, desktops, and smartphones were found to be “must-have” devices, while tablets, slates, and netbooks were relegated to “nice-to-have” status, according to a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Dell and Intel.
Sponsored by: Dell
Upcoming Events
View More >>


Oct 20: Becoming a Security Detective - Gathering and Analyzing Security Intelligence in the Enterprise

In this all-day virtual event, experts will offer detailed insight in how to collect security intelligence in the enterprise, and how to analyze and study it in order to efficiently identify new threats as well as low-and-slow attacks such as advanced persistent threats. Register today!

Platinum Sponsors: ArcSight, NetIQ, Proofpoint, Thawte
Gold Sponsor: Q1 Labs



October 6: InformationWeek 500 Virtual Event: The Need for Speed

At the 2011 InformationWeek 500 Virtual Conference, C-level executives from leading global companies will gather to discuss how their organizations are turbo-charging business execution and growth.

Platinum Sponsor: ArcSight, Workday
Gold Sponsor: IBM


Aug 25: InformationWeek & Dark Reading present: How Security Breaches Happen and What Your Organization Can Do About Them

Attendees will get insights on how to prevent breaches from happening, how to research and identify the source of a breach, and how to remediate a compromise as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Platinum Sponsor: ArcSight, NetIQ, Thawte
Gold Sponsors: Lumension, NetGear, GFI
Silver Sponsor: Motorola


July 28: InformationWeek & Symantec present: Infrastructure at Risk -- Taking Decisive Action to Secure Your Critical Data Assets

Join the editors of InformationWeek and leading security experts from Symantec for an in-depth look at the current threats faced by large and small organizations, and the implications for your business, your customers, and even your country. You'll hear how today's threat landscape is changing drastically, and learn the latest countermeasures and best practices to keep your company's precious data assets out of the hands of determined cybercriminals.


July 27: Electronic Health Records -- Moving from Concept to Reality

At this InformationWeek Healthcare Virtual Event, we will talk with healthcare practitioners, IT professionals and other industry experts about issues surrounding EHR selection, deployment and use.

Platinum Sponsor: HP, Intel, GBS, Geotrust, NextGen
Silver Sponsor: Proofpoint


On-Demand: InformationWeek & Interop present: Business Mobility Unleashed

 In this virtual event, the leaders behind InformationWeek Business Technology Network and Interop zero in on the top mobile technologies and techniques you'll need to understand and master to ensure your organization thrives in the wireless world.
Platinum Sponsors: Alcatel-Lucent, APC
Gold Sponsor: HP
Silver Sponsor: Emerson Network Power
Bronze Sponsor: Skybot


On-Demand: Cybersecurity Best Practices

 In this half-day virtual event, experts assess the state of cybersecurity in government and present the latest strategies for creating a more secure, attack-proof IT infrastructure. This event will help CISOs and other information assurance professionals in federal, state, and local government stay on top of the latest developments in the field.
Platinum Sponsor: GeoTrust
Gold Sponsor: Bit9


On-Demand: Data Center Transformation

Data centers are undergoing incredible transformations that create both opportunities and challenges for IT professionals. Server virtualization enables rapid provisioning, more efficient use of resources, and improved disaster recovery. That trend will continue with storage and network virtualization, allowing IT pros to further abstract -- and optimize -- data center resources.In this virtual event, you will learn how prepare your organization for a data center transformation.
Platinum Sponsors: AMD, APC, Cisco, Eaton, SunGard
Gold Sponsor: Emerson Network Power


On-Demand: Cloud Computing Roadmap: Controlling the Cloud - Managing, Optimizing and Integrating Cloud Services with Your Existing IT Infrastructure

In this virtual event, you'll learn how to craft your own strategy for successfully embracing and integrating new cloud computing capabilities without derailing or destroying your current IT roadmap.
Platinum Sponsors: ArcSight, GoToAssist, SunGard, thawte
Gold Sponsor: Symform
Silver Sponsor: Skybot


On-Demand: Plugging the Leaks -- Finding and Fixing the IT Security Holes in your Enterprise

In this virtual event presented by Dark Reading and InformationWeek, you'll find out how criminals target the flaws in your IT environment, and you'll get some insight on the best methods for finding and fixing your vulnerabilities -- before you're hit by malware or unauthorized access.
Platinum Sponsors: NetIQ, Novell, thawte, Webroot
Gold Sponsors: ArcSight, Bit9, OpenText
Silver Sponsor: Application Security, Core Security, Lumension

 

View More >>



The 2011 Informationweek 500 Conference will be held at the beautiful St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort, Dana Point, CA. Mark your calendars for September 11-13, 2011.



InformationWeek Healthcare IT Leadership Forum




Bank Systems & Technology Executive Summit 2011

View More >>
Related Reports
Related Whitepapers