Facebook has announced Timeline, a crazy (and kind of creepy) omnibus look at everything that has ever happened in your Facebook lifespan. It’s like a story book of your life — or at least the online, documented parts.
Facebook said that Timeline would be on the way for everyone sometime in the coming weeks… which is great and all, for everyone else. You’re the type of person who reads TechCrunch, and are thus likely the type of person who likes their new and shiny things right now.
That’s okay. We can make it happen.
Fortunately, enabling Timeline a bit early isn’t too difficult — but it’s not at all straight forward, either.
You see, Facebook is enabling Timeline early for open graph developers. You, too, can be an open graph developer — even if you’re just looking to dabble.
A few things to note:
- You probably don’t want to do this unless you’re actually a developer. Expect bugs.
- Only you will see your timeline at first (unless you decide otherwise), but it will automatically go public after a few days. My timeline was automatically hard-set to go public on September 29th.
- It seems that if you login into Facebook on another machine, Timeline gets disabled automatically on all of your machines. With that said, it seems you can get back to your timeline (but ONLY after following the steps below) by navigating to http://www.facebook.com/YOURUSERNAMEHERE?sk=timeline
- You’ll need to have a “verified” account for one of the steps, which means you need a credit card or phone number attached to the account.
This is the box that will come up next. Simply put whatever you want into both boxes. It doesn’t matter, as long as someone else hasn’t reserved the name. It should also be at least 7 characters long. As you can see, I put “coolmuoapp“which was the first thing that popped into my head. Now click “continue“.
Now you have to prove you’re human and not an automated bot. Enter the captcha and hit “submit“.
All you have to do is choose an action in the first text field and choose an object in the second text field. So I chose “watch” in the first text field and “movie” in the second. Now press “get started“.
After processing that, Facebook will flip back to the Open Graph page (you may even get an error message) but you can now ignore all of that and head towards your Facebook profile. Within a minute or two, you should receive an invitation to try out the timeline profile. Click on that and you are in. Here’s mine :
At the top, where I have chosen to upload a group photo is the area known as the “cover”. This is where you can upload your own photo and really personalise your page. You can let your imagination go completely riot and choose something that reflects your personality and who you are.On the whole, the timeline profile is an interesting development but it is a radical departure from what the profile used to be like, so I am sure there will be lots of people who will vehemently hate the design. But I would say give it a chance.
As the name “timeline” implies, you can move the slider back over every year you have had the Facebook profile and see all your old status messages. I found it fascinating seeing what I posted years ago and laughing at some of the bad jokes that I posted (and some of the good ones too).
Let us know in the comments if you have any problems getting the timeline page, and also let us know if you either like or hate the new design.
Facebook said that Timeline would be on the way for everyone sometime in the coming weeks… which is great and all, for everyone else. You’re the type of person who reads TechCrunch, and are thus likely the type of person who likes their new and shiny things right now.
That’s okay. We can make it happen.
Fortunately, enabling Timeline a bit early isn’t too difficult — but it’s not at all straight forward, either.
You see, Facebook is enabling Timeline early for open graph developers. You, too, can be an open graph developer — even if you’re just looking to dabble.
A few things to note:
- You probably don’t want to do this unless you’re actually a developer. Expect bugs.
- Only you will see your timeline at first (unless you decide otherwise), but it will automatically go public after a few days. My timeline was automatically hard-set to go public on September 29th.
- It seems that if you login into Facebook on another machine, Timeline gets disabled automatically on all of your machines. With that said, it seems you can get back to your timeline (but ONLY after following the steps below) by navigating to http://www.facebook.com/YOURUSERNAMEHERE?sk=timeline
- You’ll need to have a “verified” account for one of the steps, which means you need a credit card or phone number attached to the account.
Here’s how to do it:
Step One – Authorize Facebook Developer To Access Your Account
The first step is to sign up as a Facebook developer. This involves enabling and authorising Facebook Developer to access your Facebook account. Just go here and click “allow“.
Create A New App
The next step is to create a new app. Don’t panic, you’re not actually going to create one. On this page, in the top right hand corner are two buttons – “edit app” and “create new app“. Click “create new app“.
This is the box that will come up next. Simply put whatever you want into both boxes. It doesn’t matter, as long as someone else hasn’t reserved the name. It should also be at least 7 characters long. As you can see, I put “coolmuoapp“which was the first thing that popped into my head. Now click “continue“.
Clear The Captcha
Now you have to prove you’re human and not an automated bot. Enter the captcha and hit “submit“.
Define An Action
OK, you’re almost finished. In this final screen, the only thing you need to concern yourself with is the “Open Graph” link in the top left hand corner of the page. Click on that and you will get this :
After processing that, Facebook will flip back to the Open Graph page (you may even get an error message) but you can now ignore all of that and head towards your Facebook profile. Within a minute or two, you should receive an invitation to try out the timeline profile. Click on that and you are in. Here’s mine :
At the top, where I have chosen to upload a group photo is the area known as the “cover”. This is where you can upload your own photo and really personalise your page. You can let your imagination go completely riot and choose something that reflects your personality and who you are.On the whole, the timeline profile is an interesting development but it is a radical departure from what the profile used to be like, so I am sure there will be lots of people who will vehemently hate the design. But I would say give it a chance.
As the name “timeline” implies, you can move the slider back over every year you have had the Facebook profile and see all your old status messages. I found it fascinating seeing what I posted years ago and laughing at some of the bad jokes that I posted (and some of the good ones too).
Let us know in the comments if you have any problems getting the timeline page, and also let us know if you either like or hate the new design.
