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f8

The Evolution of Facebook

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Facebook is rolling out with some new features and functionalities that will provide a more intuitive way to broadcast and view your life’s moments and create a more seamless way of engaging. These were revealed at this year’s f8 conference, and we’re going to give you a short break-down of these new features:

• Timeline

• Ticker

• Open Graph Apps

Intro to f8

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Timeline: What’s New?

Cover Photo

Smart-Scrolling Timeline

New Layout for Info

Timeline Navigation

Recent Activity – Filtered by similar content

Different Ways to Post to Wall

The Timeline layout is a redesign of the new Facebook profile page

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Timeline Navigation

• Timeline layout allows users to view and access important moments through scroll-down navigation to all the way back to the day users were born

• Status updates, videos, activities, and photos are represented on the timeline by date and importance

– Users will be able to add updates to any point in their timeline

– Blue dots indicate important events based on feedback and impressions; users will be able to manually sign importance by “starring” posts

– Gray dots indicate statuses of lesser importance that remain hidden

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Timeline Wall Updates

• Wall is integrated within a user’s Timeline

• Pre-populated with new status options:

– Work and Education: Add a job, graduated, etc.

– Family and Relationships: engaged, married, add a child, etc.

– Living: moved, add a vehicle, bought a home, etc.

– Health and Wellness: had surgery, broke a bone, etc.

– Milestones and Experiences: got a licensed, traveled, etc.

• Increased privacy settings for each post

– Public, Friends, Lists (Similar to Google Circles, users will be able to categorize their network)

• Ex. Hiking Buddies, Dance Team, etc.

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Ticker

• The Ticker is the solution to Facebook’s problem of overloading the newsfeed

– Ticker shows a user’s network’s light-weight activity such as tagging and liking

• Hovering the mouse over a ticker item will enlarge the post to show your friend’s activity in detail

– Users will be able to experience a heightened engagement via the ticker. Beyond commenting and liking, users can listen to music, view games, and read news articles.

The Ticker will be a Discovery tool that will allow users to try new things based on friends activities

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Open Graph: AppsThe Open Graph will allow users to move beyond simply “Liking,” and place

more of an emphasis on action and behavior

• Apps will allow users to access and engage branded content through their Timeline and Ticker

– Ex. When a user downloads the Spotify app and uses it frequently, the app summarizes the user’s activity within the Timeline

– Ex. When a user is listening to a song via the Spotify app, the activity is displayed on the Ticker. His friend can click on the activity to listen to the same song in real-time

• Some experiences direct users to a canvas app, a window that feeds in third-party API

• Apps no longer give multiple prompts when users engage the app. Instead, there is one-time “Allow”

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Client Insights

• There is significantly more emphasis being placed on app builds (especially canvas app builds)

• Gaining “Likes” are less important as it falls under the category of “light-weight activity.” The new Facebook emphasizes creating engaging content.

• There is also less of a spotlight on isolated tab experiences (ex. Watching a video or taking a poll only on a tab); they focus more on engaging people on their newsfeed and Ticker

• The new API encourages users to stay within the Facebook environment (using canvas apps)

• More information to come about Page Formats (Pages were not addressed during f8), however, we can garner that since “likes” and individual tab experiences are less important in this new format, we’re going to have to encourage clients to develop pages/apps that directly engage users instead of simply creating a one-way dialogue