The “Pinterestization” of Facebook continues. The company today
introduced changes to Timeline that allow users to more easily and prominently display collections of things they like (via apps). This was part of the introduction of an overall Timeline redesign.
Images in posts are larger and are seen on the right (a mirror of some of the recent News Feed changes), while other photos, music and recent activity are clustered in a slightly narrower column on the left.
There’s also a bigger emphasis on apps as sources of self expression. App-based custom collections (movies, books, images, check-ins, etc.) will now be stand-alone sections on users’ About/profile pages.
Facebook offers three different style templates for developers to build collections. Facebook provided instructions and rules for developer-publishers on how to create custom app collections. All must be reviewed and approved.
Once again, here’s the Pinterest-like angle, in my view:
Much like our Open Graph Principles, the role of custom collections is to allow people to express who they are through the collections they expose. This means when we expect that apps that expose collections will:
Set clear expectations about what it means to share a custom collection and what someone’s friends will see on their timeline.
Let people easily control what shows up in their collections.
Publish accurate, meaningful and well-structured content.
Provide an easy-to-use interface, value to people and no significant bugs.
Once these collections are created, people will be able to add them with one click. To add an app/collection, users will simply click an “Add to Profile” button (see image above). Existing privacy controls and settings apply to these collections.
The new design and features are rolling out over the next several weeks.
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