On a friend's suggestion, i activated the Timeline offered by Facebook for sometime now. Timeline had alrady been a disputed application(first some old group of Zuckerberg's classmates had claimed their Intellectual Property right for it, then Zuckerberg was sued by some timelines.com for the same, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConnectU for more). After all this legal hassle, Timeline was implemented. But ever since then, its been under the public ire. People all over the world have been criticising it for various reasons. Some find it too congested, some say that its too complicated. My personal comment on it would be that its too congested, is highly bandwidth and data hungry, shows too much irrelevant stuff, and simply exposes all the activities you might have ever done on your FB account(it showed me what links had i shared back in 2007, that much privacy has been exposed).
In the act of 'Copying the iPhone interface' , Mack Zuckerberg led Facebook has gone way ahead to use other people's ideas in their site. Anyhow, 'imposing' them compulsorily on anyone who selects the 'preview timeline' button shouldn't be there. Thats what happened to me. There was nowhere written, or a disclaimer stating that we would not be able to switch back to the old timeline. So Mark 'Sucker'berg is actually deveiving people into timeline.
And i also found that every activity that i did on Facebook since i joined it in August 2007 was there on the timeline. I mean, why would a website collect all that information just from one user, and save it for so many years? And with 80million users, it should be more than 1024Terabytes(yes, it can be. Wall posts of throwing sheep and throwing dog are also saved, and so is the youtube link you shared in 2009). Isn't the right to that much data an insecurity? What if there's some loophole in Timeline, and someone can view every damn activity inspite of being in the blocked list?
Even the internet is abuzz with words criticising Timeline. I found dozens oflinks like http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/12/everything-youll-hate-about-new-facebook-timeline/46237/ openly criticising Facebook. Also fellow bloggers like Randy Adams openly alleging Facebook has been a copier, and habitual intellectual property thief and law violator. Well, he's not false in saying so,considering that none of the high-profile cases against Facebook were completed in court, and Facebook did an out of court settlement with all of them. Randy did find out a great way to protest facebook's move to 'force' timeline on us. Just hide the ad, and state "protest timeline" in the reason to hide it.
My point is, Facebook should keep things transparent and clear, just like the mighty Google(the supreme god of Internet) does. Google, inspite being an ecosystem in itself, thousand times larget than Facebook has a better transparency, and does things flawlessly. We should remember, that all the Ajax that Facebook uses exists on the planet thanks to Google Labs.
My personal view - Google should buy out Facebook. I've been with Google for the last 8 years, and have to admit. Google is the only thing on the planet that can challenge Microsoft. Apple's a down'er with again copied concepts and unfair policies.
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