Whether you like it or not, very soon Facebook Timeline will be mandatory for all.
“Over the next few weeks, everyone will get timeline. When you get timeline, you’ll have 7 days to preview what’s there now. This gives you a chance to add or hide whatever you want before anyone else sees it.”
The above statement was given by Facebook Engineer Paul McDonald on January 24, 2012 in an update on facebook.com’s home blog.
Facebook announced that all profiles will be moved over into the new Timeline mode over the next few weeks. Since the birth of the Timeline in September 2011, users have had the chance to choose whether or not they would opt into Timeline, but now in a few weeks – the ‘older’ profile style will no longer be available.
In the next few weeks, every user that has not yet started using the Timeline will see an announcement bar at the top of their Facebook homepage alerting them that their profile is about to convert to Timeline. From this time they will have 7 days to review and edit their Timeline and hide any embarrassing or scandalous status updates that they made way before family members like ‘mom’ and ‘grandma’ joined Facebook and also before employers and potential employers were included as their friends…even if they were on limited profile.
During the 7 days of ‘review-time’, there is the choice to switch to Timeline at the click of a button, but if the active choice is not made to switch over before the 7 days are over, profiles will be automatically converted to Timeline.
The majority of comments on this blog entry by McDonald were so evidently negative against the forced Timeline for all, including one user who wrote, “I feel like Hell when Facebook changes something without asking their users.” and another who commented, “Please make this an option, not force it down our throats. Google+ is right around the corner waiting for your misstep like this.”
The new Timeline will not share any new information, however, it will make it extremely easy for users to quickly skip back a few years when viewing profiles.