Facebook Eyes Sharing; Adds New Timeline, Ticker

Facebook has grabbed a lot of attention lately with efforts to combat its new competitor Google+, which has the potential to steal the ground that the social networking giant holds with a user base of 750 millions.

While Facebook has the reputation of being a private platform that makes the posts available only to friends, Google+ has established an advanced network with the concept of Circles, which lets users have control over the viewers of the posts.

At the company’s f8 Development conference, founder Mark Zuckerberg announced several new features, including Timeline and real-time app.

With the introduction of real-time app, Facebook shares all the activities that your friends are doing and the things they like. This also includes updates on news feed. Users who do not want their activities to be made public can alter display options. This app is an attempt to increase the publicity of a post.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said he was initially skeptical of using the app as it would give so much information of customer preference of Netflix movies and TV shows. Once he used the app, he realized, more people are watching videos on Netflix.

This app is clearly a move to keep up with Google+, which can be of great attraction to publishers of posts as getting publicity for a post becomes easier with Google+ with search engine optimization to increase the ranking on Google searches, search engine marketing keyword ads to drive traffic and on-site advertising solutions ranging from AdSense to DoubleClick.

Timelines show the activities of the user in a chronological order. Friends can go back at different dates, since you joined the site to check on the photos, status info and apps that you have been using.

You can also get a developer status by simply entering the new Facebook developer site and creating an application for the social networking site. This can also enable you to see who has removed you from the friend list.

The new Timeline replaces the concept of the wall and profile and users will eventually have to switch to Timelines and there is no way that they can opt out of it.

Farhad Manjoo write at Slate, “Mark Zuckerberg wants you to share. He doesn't much care if you want to share. Sharing is fundamentally about choosing. You experience a huge number of things every day, but you choose to tell your friends about only a fraction of them, because most of what you do isn't worth mentioning.

Zuckerberg has noted the change in Sharing behaviour of people on the Internet. People share twice as much online than they did the year before. If you Liked 100 news stories last year, you'll Like 200 this year, and 400 next year, says Manjoo.

With integrating sharing apps on the site, Zuckerberg is giving people more reason to keep coming back to Facebook.