In a continued effort to make Facebook the centre of one's online experience, the social giant has announced the official release of the first Timeline-optimised apps.
The new social applications that tap into Facebook's “Open Graph” are tightly integrated into the new profile design and feature the controversial “frictionless” sharing functionality.
Announced at a special press conference, Facebook says over 60 apps are available immediately, including Pinterest, Foursquare, Foodspotting and eBay.
While the apps are optimised to share user activities automatically to the Timeline, Facebook's director of platform Carl Sjogreen emphasises that users can control whether or not their activities are shared and who can see them.
Sjogreen says: “Timeline apps are for the activities you want to share with friends. You choose when to add an app, and you decide who can see it. After you've added an app, you can always remove posts directly from timeline, and you can also edit your settings from your personal Activity Log.”
The latest announcement marks the next step in Facebook's evolution following the initial unveiling of the new design in October last year. Timeline was, however, only officially rolled out at the end of December.
While the new design has been highly praised for its aesthetics, it has also been highly criticised for embodying “over-sharing”, breaching privacy and lending itself to so-called “cyber stalking”.
Even prior to the global rollout of Timeline, users were up in arms over the more minor changes to the Facebook interface that included the introduction of the “ticker” (a live stream of real-time activities) and “Top stories” (which reorganised the news feed according to a new algorithm).
These changes were, however, merely setting the scene for the more substantial changes that are now taking effect.
'If it ain't broke...'
While Facebook's opening of its social graph to developers for multitudes of applications will undoubtedly help maintain activity levels and engagement on the service, many users are sceptical of the potential it provides for them to inadvertently spam their friends.
Commenting on the announcement on Facebook, one user says: “Who really wants others to see what music they listen to, what they are doing, what programs they have running... I find that stuff quite private.” (sic)
Another unimpressed user writes: “This is just a dumb idea for overly vain people. Why on earth would I care if Will is cooking? Good for Will. Talk about an immensely boring status update. It's as boring as what my friends are listening to, it's not like I'm doing it with them.”
“So we're all agreed then, Facebook is hell-bent on a path to self-destruction by adding excess and unwanted complexity. Facebook read and repeat after me: If it ain't broke, don't fix it!” says another user.
On the other hand, a more positive user says: “Facebook has to keep growing though it's hard for some to adjust to change. You all are doing really cool stuff and - frankly - where would we all be without Facebook?'
In order to browse and add the new applications, users can visit the dedicated Facebook page here.
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