The Controversy of Facebook Timeline

There’s a definite paradox in place when it comes to Facebook developments. Whilst the site’s features, usability and indeed popularity have continued to expand over the past four years, each progression has been met by the same predictable user backlash lamenting profiles of old.

So when Facebook announced its imminent Timeline changes back in September, a step that would see profiles as we knew them becoming a thing of the past whilst bringing with it a fresh crop of privacy issues, Social Media pundits were rightly predicting troubled waters ahead.

But it seemed fate had other plans in mind, and in a twist on Facebook’s history of suing others for supposed copyright and trademark infringements the company found itself on the receiving end of legal action.

Law Suit Filed

Timelines Inc, a small Chicago-based company which uses a similar infrastructure on its site timelines.com, filed a law suit on September 29th (rumoured to have been the initial Timeline roll-out date) attempting to block the features launch. Claiming this latest Facebook development could see them being “rolled over and quite possibly eliminated”, a temporary order was issued against Facebook restricting Timeline to developers only.

Two months down the line and the temporary order expired, Facebook have today begun this much-delayed release, though initially only to users in New Zealand. It’s unsure just how long the rest of the world will have to wait for this update, though with the court case set to reconvene in January and Facebook now counter-suing Timelines Inc it seems the drama is far from over in this latest legal wrangling.

Could the Delay Benefit Facebook?

So what can we expect when Timeline finally lands on accounts of the “lay-user”? Whilst layout changes are sure to cause a public outcry, ironically the delays will most likely have worked in Facebook’s favour.

The staggered developer-only release has meant that the usual raft of privacy loopholes and bugs were being turned up by sympathetic early adopters. With the update having sat as a beta product for over two months now, Timeline debuts in a much stronger light for the sake of this time in the desert.

That’s not to say it’ll be a smooth transition though, with the update requiring that users not only familiarise themselves with yet another re-design but also asking of them yet more content in completing the Birth-to-Present-Date profile.

Though a judgement against Facebook in January could see these developments further slowed, it seems the larger battle will come only when a full roll-out is achieved and a truer picture of user reaction can be gauged. More importantly, if changes are met by an overwhelmingly negative response, will Google+ be a worthy enough alternative to draw users from Facebook’s clutches.