You have all these old photos on Facebook that no one ever sees. Why? Because they fall off the wall and out of your life. Sure, they’re accessible, but really, who’s going to look back for that tiny grey button? But what if that changed? What if the important moments of your life that you’ve catalogued and carefully labeled on Facebook could be shown as one, big timeline?

That’s what Facebook’s new ‘Timeline’ application is set to do. Reformatting the old Facebook profile pages with this new version, the company’s goal is to reflect your life in its pages.

"We wanted to design a place that feels like your home," Zuckerberg said, "Where you tell your story online is really personal. You invest a lot of time in it and you curate it. You link to it and you tell all your friends to find you there. So we wanted to make Timeline a place you’re proud to call your home. So Timeline is a completely new aesthetic from Facebook … so you can express who you really are."

Or, more concisely: "Timeline is the story of your life," Zuckerberg said.

Instead of showing just the last five minutes of your life, or even the last fifteen minutes, Timeline’s goal is to show your whole life, from birth to now, on one page. How do they plan on doing that? Well, part of it is your input. You pick the photos that are important and chose to enlarge them, mark them, or delete negative comments. Too much work? Don’t worry; Facebook will do most of it for you automatically. Key moments, chosen by a robot, will highlight the years of your past.

Why would they create Timeline? They’re thinking a step ahead. Google+ is looking to encroach on their territory, and was doing a fairly good job of it until now. The Timeline application revolutionizes the way social media look and feels, turning your life into art rather than a chart. Who wouldn’t want their Facebook page to feel more like a reflection of themselves? It also paves the way for the future, which is a bit scary.

The future of Timeline is this- report your life, from birth until now. Your baby pictures, your first steps, your first kiss, all recorded and catalogued and kept for posterity in one convenient, attractive program. It’s ‘This is Your Life’ for the new millennium. Best of all, you control it. So your life is more than just a pile of paperwork; it’s a reflection of not just what it is, but what you want it to be; what is important to you, your family, and your social network.

You might be interested in giving your profile the new Timeline feature, then visit my previous post where i have a tutorial explaining how to enable timeline on your profile.

Genealogy will never be the same.

This is a guest post from Laura Backes, she enjoys writing about all kinds of subjects and also topics related to internet service providers in my area.  You can reach her at: laurabackes8 [at] gmail.com.