By Kendra Germany
Staff reports
On Sept. 22, Facebook-founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that the website would be totally revamping its image.
On Sept. 21, Facebook started its changes by introducing the real time-ticker feature. The ticker shows all comments and likes made by friends.
This will cut down the clutter on news feeds. Users can click on and interact with the content displayed in the ticker.
Other changes noticed by users were the moving of the status box, and larger picture displays.
These small changes were met with strong opposition from many users. Facebook news feeds blew up with complaints made by users who were upset that Facebook had changed its look.
The most popular comment observed was the classic, “Don’t change what isn’t broken.”
What most of the people who oppose the changes don’t know is that in the next few weeks the Facebook they love so much will receive even more changes that will completely change the way people use the website.
At the Facebook developers conference, also known as F8, Zuckerberg introduced some major changes to the website that would profoundly change the way we look at Facebook.
One of the major changes will be the profile page, which will undergo a total makeover.
According to the Facebook information website, in addition to the original profile picture, there will also be a large-scale cover photo.
Users can personalize this large-scale photo so that friends can tell by a single glance that this is that user’s profile.
Information like relationship status, schools and birthdate will still be displayed on the user’s profile. Along with this information will be a map that shows the places users have checked in, giving people a sense of all the places the users have visited while using Facebook.
Zuckerberg stated at F8 that one of the most exciting changes Facebook will be making is called Timeline. Timeline is designed to be like a virtual scrapbook of your life on Facebook.
Facebook isn’t just about what you’re doing right now but about what you have done on Facebook in the past. Facebook users will have the option of what they wish to share or not to share on their Timeline.
In addition to the normal relationship status and employment information, users will be able to add an in-depth list of their life experience. The list includes a list of pets, engagements, marriages, children, loss of loved ones, broken bones and even surgeries.
Users will be able to share just about anything they have experienced in life on Facebook.
The entire Timeline will be located on the right side of the profile, which allows those visiting a profile to visit any point of the users life to see what they were doing during that point in time.
Whatever a user chooses to share on the Timeline will be available for their friends to see.
Also announced at F8 was that Facebook will allow users to choose who they are sharing with. This ensures privacy, allowing users the power to select who they want seeing their information.
Timeline and privacy settings weren’t the only announcements made at F8. The new feature called Open Graph will change everything about Facebook and how users share information.
“Today we are making it possible to create a whole new class of apps and change the industries at the same time,” said Zuckerberg, during the live broadcast of his speech.
Open Graph is designed for developers to build apps that allow users to share whatever they are doing without overwhelming their friends.
According to the Facebook developers’ webpage, there are three major factors to Open Graph, one being applications no longer have to ask for permission to post content to Facebook.
Instead, a new Facebook permissions screen explains exactly what type of stories will be shared the first time the user gives an application permission to post to Facebook.
Updates through Open Graph will automatically appear in the ticker but do not appear in the newsfeeds unless it is an important event. So the days of seeing 500 Farmville updates on the news feeds are over.
Users will also be able to share experiences, such as listening to music or the books they are reading through the Open Graph and ticker. Users can link Amazon book lists of what they, are reading to their Facebook profiles books section, and friends will be able to see this list in the ticker.
Users can also set up Spotify in their music section and friends will be able to listen to that music at the same time through the ticker.
According to Zuckerberg, when the changes to Facebook are complete, the site will be “much more than just a social networking site.” Users will just have to wait and see how the changes affect the Facebook experience.