Facebook Timeline: Going to push or make Facebook bleed?

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This is a guest post by Alyssa Clarke.

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Facebook has recently pushed the level of competition up with its new venture “Facebook Timeline”.  The new look and feel of this endeavor is like a breath of fresh air for many.  And I am not saying it out of the blues. The stats show that the launch of timeline resulted in an immediate shift of most of the facebook users’ homepage. Wow!! So this means that facebook has got a new reason to celebrate. But Wait a minute! All this makes me ponder over an inevitable question “is this change for the good”?  Will this shoot up the facebook to new heights of success or will it bring the downfall of this social media giant?

What the feedback says?

So far so good, but the feedback on a whole has only been negative. However most of the users are welcoming the changes and have already accepted it. But on the other hand for some, the change is too drastic. Is it?

Poll outcome

From a recent poll of 620 million Facebook users conducted by CommerceOnFacebook.com, the feedback showed a clear cut dislike towards Timeline. Over 70% people gave thumbs down and voted against Timeline. Most of the regular users of Facebook noted that half of their items on Facebook wall disappeared after using timeline and they don’t have much time and enough energy to customize them again. The only reason they are using Facebook is because of its uncomplicated nature and the ease with which they can stay in touch with their friends. Me too!!!

How the plug-ins help

Currently there are many applications plugging into Facebook API for many different features and functionality. Most of the users used Facebook just because of ease of migration of photo albums and videos from account to account. Possibly if Google creates a ‘migration’ API, by that any Facebook user could automatically transfer all of their photo albums directly from Facebook over to Google plus.

Users concern

This will not just stop there, the complete profile information currently in Facebook account could automatically be transferred into Google+ account. The only thing, Facebook is holding on most of the people, is because of the hassle-free functioning it provides to its existing users and the difficulty in switching over to a new network. However, if the majority of people, feel that these Facebook changes in terms of timeline are way too drastic and no longer the old but user-friendly, then this could undoubtedly will make face book feel like having ants in the pants.

Social game lovers still using Facebook will find their most of favorite games also available on Google+. Considering business perspective it wouldn’t be a bad thing either. Facebook hasn’t made any such option for promoting business related terms and things which in turn will help business persons to stick only with the Facebook.

However, Google already has the infrastructure and network for Google checkout, organic search and kind of paid advertising from both the publisher and advertiser perspective. Although Facebook ads are cheaper than the ads on Google but still it doesn’t meet ROI enjoyed by the advertised costumers.

What’s due

Conclusively, we may say that the introduction of timeline could go either way, but it could just be the starting point of a continuous decrease of Facebook users. Since Facebook is all about staying connected in the simplest way, hence it’s pretty doubtful whether people will ever prefer switching to this new version over the uncomplicated older one. Moreover, how can Facebook neglect the forever posing danger of its most likely rival, Google+? Don’t you think Google will try to take each and every bit of advantage of this mishap, if at all it is?  What if Google tries to come up with some migration technique for existing Facebook users? Or will Facebook realize its mistake made by then and try to rectify before it’s too late. Surprisingly, with approximately 50 million users, Google plus has already started to show early signs of beckoning the battle for social network website dominance.

The questions are too many and the answer is still unknown. Hence, only time can tell whether Facebook timeline is going to push or make Facebook bleed. So, we just have to wait and watch!!

About the author: Alyssa Clarke is a blogger who also happens to be a tech lover. She loves spending on tech stuff and recently bought a new ipod shuffle charger. She is a gaming freak as well and is currently hunting for some cool 3d racing games.

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