Monthly Archives: February 2012

Today, Facebook announced Timeline for Pages. All pages will be forced into the new format on March 30th. For pages used as a support forum or for collaboration, the new design is terrible. A step backwards, rather than a step forward.

Not every Page is a "brand" that wants to promote an image with a nice big cover photo, or push their message to their users. Some pages, like the Social Fixer Page, are a support forum where users share feedback and ideas. My goal is efficiency and a sense of community, not a brand image. Timeline fails miserably for me.

I'm not just another user who hates change. I welcome re-designs and improvements. I'm not afraid of new features, and I like to push forward. In fact, the whole point of Social Fixer is to take Facebook to the next level and add even more functionality and features. But this change, IMO, is just bad in a number of ways.

What's Wrong With It?

Here are my initial complaints (click to enlarge):

1) I cannot remove "Photos" from being highlighted at the top of the page. Previously, I could remove photos from being featured in the "photo strip", and make the strip disappear entirely.

2) Cover photo content is very restricted, according to their FAQ entry. I can't even put my web site in my cover photo? Really?!

3) Admin panel and Timeline in general are slow. I am all about efficiency, and being able to respond to many user posts as quickly as possible. Timeline bogs me down.

4) The "About" link, which holds helpful information that Facebook has banned from the cover photo, is very hidden.

5) Default "landing" tabs no longer work. Many pages had welcome pages which introduced the page to new users. All the time, money, and effort put into these pages is now wasted.

6) "Tabs" in the old pages were a column of text links on the left with very small icons. Now they are feature prominently at the top with large icons, and only a few of them are visible by default. This really hampers navigation.

7) The default view of pages is "Highlights" which is a filtered view of what FACEBOOK thinks is important for my users to see. The dropdown to change this very is hidden and many users may not find it at all.

8 ) I can either view Posts by Page or Posts by Others, but not both! I can no longer see a single stream of all interactions on my page. Terrible.

9) Facebook highlights interactions from my friends which may be very old. Even on my own page that I manage! What good is this? Why must I see this every time I visit my page?

Conclusion

Unfortunately, we're stuck with what Facebook gives us. It seems to me that they want to define what Facebook is and how it is used, even if a large number of users actually use it differently. To them, everything is about branding and image and looking "awesome". But many of us just want clear, easy to use, efficient functionality. We're not all marketers trying to push a brand.

I'm very disappointed by Timeline for Pages.

Luckily, I write a little tool called Social Fixer.  

As of this writing, about 300,000 people use it every day because – like me – they want to take back control of their Facebook experience. I will be working hard to add functionality and remove annoyances, hopefully before the forced roll-out on March 30th. Facebook never stops providing opportunity for me to improve on what they've built!

-- Matt Kruse

Many people don't like Facebook's new Timeline profiles, and FB doesn't offer any alternative or way to customize how you see them. But Social Fixer lets you take back control!

With version 6.4 (2012-02-13), Social Fixer can:

• Revert back to a single-column view
• Hide cover photos
• Hide the "Friends" box that always appears on the right
• Hide the little maps that appear under check-ins

Here's an example, using Social Media guru Mari Smith's timeline profile:

(If you are new to Social Fixer, first go to the web site and install it in your browser. It's simple and free, and you'll immediately see some of the improvements it makes after going through the quick Install Wizard.)

Now when you visit Timeline pages, you'll notice a small control panel in the upper left corner, as seen here. These give you instant control over the Timeline options in Social Fixer.

Single Column: Switch from the side-by-side view to a single column in chronological order.

Hide Cover Photo: If you don't want to see the huge photo at the top.

Hide Friends Box: A box for friends is always the first one in the right column, taking up space, so you can hide it from view.

Hide Check-In Maps: Under check-ins, hide the small map is shown with the location.

Close: Remove the control panel. You can always change these options in Options/Timeline (under the wrench icon in the blue header), and you can also choose to display the control panel again if you wish.

Social Fixer cannot, unfortunately, revert Timeline profiles back to the older "wall" style completely. But I will be working hard to continue providing users with the control they want to use Facebook how they want.

Also, Social Fixer cannot change how others see your Timeline profile. Since it is a browser plug-in, it only affects how you see Timelines.

Questions? Comments? See the Social Fixer Page on Facebook, and join over 250,000 happy users!

If you like the control that Social Fixer gives you, please share this post on your wall, link to it from your blog or Twitter, or share SocialFixer.com with your friends! Thanks!

New applications and games get released on Facebook every day. When this happens, Social Fixer may not recognize the app, so its posts won’t automatically get sent to a tab like others. Fortunately, it’s easy to tab new apps!

When you hover over posts, icons appear in the upper right of the post. (If they don’t, make sure Options->Posts->”Show Post Action Icons on each post” is checked). When you find a post from an app that you want tabbed, click the “+” icon, as seen here:

Your page will then refresh and posts from the app should be automatically added to tabs. If they don’t, make sure that Options->Popular->”Automatically move posts from Applications (games) into their own tabs” is checked!

But what if you do NOT want some apps going to tabs? For example, Twitter. Un-tabbing an app is easy also! When you hover over tabs, an “x” icon will appear. Clicking this will close the tab and cause those posts to reappear in your home newsfeed.

If you are wondering why tabs for applications appear sometimes but not others, perhaps this FAQ entry will help: Why do tabs for games sometimes appear and sometimes not?

Finally, if you want granular control, or you just want to check out how these choices are stored “under the hood”, you can find that in the Options->Filtering tab.

I hope this quick post helps you keep tabs on your tabs!