Now that I’ve gotten my anger out about the whiners that make up a lot of Facebook, lets talk about why it’s awesome.

Let me preface this by saying that I love updates. I am that guy that is excited when the little update icon pops up on my mac. You can even say that iTunes updates are my bread and butter. So when Facebook announced that they’re basically rebuilding profiles from the ground up, I was giddy like a 5 year-old hopped up on Red Bull.

I want to direct this post to those who did not share my sentiment. So for those who pitched a fit when the news broke, here’s what you need to know.

Timeline

The biggest update came in the form of a total profile overhaul, a part of Facebook that hasn’t seen a major change in a few years. Mark Zuckerberg used a cool metaphor during the f8 keynote.

The first section of Timeline is the information you would share in the first few minutes of a conversation with a stranger, the basic stuff; where you work or go to school, how old you are, and where you live. The second update is the next thing that comes up in that same conversation, what you have been doing lately. This took form as the addition of status updates.

Timeline is the best conversation you’ve ever had. It’s about your life. It’s about the important milestones; jobs, relationships, great parties you went to when your were 19. It’s easy to scan through the years, see what friends you’ve made and what pictures you took.

Also, in edition to your profile picture, you now have a cover photo, a picture that describes you. Something beyond a simple headshot. Pictures of your pets, a group shot of your friends, or a skyline picture work great. I chose to go artsy with this cool painting based on “Pulp Fiction.” You know, cause I’m cool like that.

If you still don’t get it, Facebook put together a nice video that explains it perfectly. Maybe I cried a little, don’t judge.

 

Apps Integration

Facebook knows that you don’t spend all your time on Facebook. They don’t like that fact, but they have accepted it. In an effort to keep you on Facebook even more, app integration is going to be huge. For example, you can now connect your Facebook to your Spotify account and the songs you listen to will be posted to your profile as you listen to those songs. You can even play songs that your friends listened to through your Spotify account or directly through Facebook.

Apps mean your friends will know what you cooked, where you jogged, what movies you saw and much more. Facebook said that instead of just liking something you will be able verb andy noun. Considering most of my statuses are about songs I like or food I eat or movies I see, it makes sense.

Ticker and the new News feed

Ticker is Facebook’s effort to weed out the “lighter” stories from your news feed. It decides what stories would be more important to you based on who it is about or what it’s about. You can deem stories as unimportant as they pop up by clicking on the blue triangle at the top of the stories.

So, now you have the ticker in the top right hand corner of your profile to show the (probably) not so important status updates from friends, family, and the weirdos that you’re connected to but don’t know why. Ticker status examples are people commenting on pictures, friends of friends commenting on statues, etc.  Hover your mouse over the stories to get all the info in a nice pop-up window. It was a pain in the ass from an aesthetic point of view until it was integrated into the chat side bar. I’m anal about that kind of stuff.

So the Facebook redesign is finally here and I love it, but you probably guessed that already. The important questions are:

• Do you like Timeline?
• What do you think is awesome about it?
• Are you cursing off Facebook for any of the changes?
• What would you change or change back to?