Facebook rolls out mandatory Timeline for brand Pages, not profiles
CBS News Facebook Timeline
/ Facebook/CBS(CBS News) Ready or not, Facebook Pages is rolling out today for all businesses and public figures.
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Facebook announced Timeline for Pages in February, but it wasn't mandatory until now. ZDNET got confirmation of the rollout today from Facebook via email.
"The update will start at 11 a.m. PST today and it's rolling out throughout the day," a Facebook spokesperson said. "Don't have a time frame to share on when everyone will have it."
If you're not familiar with Pages, they're sometimes referred to as "fan pages" that businesses, public figures or causes, among other groups, can create to broadcast updates and photos.
Does that mean everyone is getting Timeline today?
No. Pages are not the same as regular Facebook profiles. It's still unclear when regular profiles will be pushed to Timeline. If you haven't familiarized yourself with Timeline, we highlighted some features to look out for in December, when it was launched for Facebook profiles.
Facebook Timeline goes live worldwide
Some things to note before Timeline rolls out for regular profiles are that all of the status updates and posts that were previously buried will be easier to access. Timeline's highlight feature will bring popular posts out from the news feed abyss, so go back and view your history.
Pages or Timeline with Subscribe?
Some people have been confused over what the difference is between Pages and activating Subscriptions on your Timeline. This is a good question for journalists or public figures who don't want to create a brand Page.
Facebook published a guide to note the differences between the two options for connecting with the general public. Some notable advantages for using Pages is that the feature offers tools for brands, like multiple page managers, custom tabs and access to Facebook insights.
Facebook
Subscribe makes more sense if you are public figure who wants to share news and photos with varying groups of people. The different levels of privacy make it easier to have a public persona while staying connected to close friends.
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"Facebook Pages are now used in a number of different ways to represent businesses and organizations, public figures, bands, and more. For the last several years, they have been the primary tool for those entities and people to have a presence on Facebook," explains the company itself about its original page feature.
Yet I looked at several Facebook pages tonight, finding that no one is exempt. I found what appeared to be the previously well-constructed pages of banks, lawyers, pizzerias, advocacy groups, libraries, politicians, as well as some prominent recording artists had been completely destroyed.
This was an ill-conceived way of introducing a new feature. What they should have done instead is offered Timeline itself as a new free-standing application.
So I've decide to protest. I put up a timeline header that has a Page Closed graphic I made, and I'm not going back to Facebook until they make changes. These guys make a ton of money off our time, and I really hope people speak out by just not logging on.