I never realized how big of an impact Facebook Timeline could have on your life until one day, a friend suddenly re-added me on Facebook, claiming that Timeline has stripped him of all privacy and that he wants to start fresh, with nothing in the past to haunt him. To be honest, I thought he was exaggerating quite a bit until I came across marketing blogs that repeat the same sentiments such as http://fusemg.com/articles/the-night-i-deleted-83-of-the-people-from-my-life

With the emergence of Google Plus, and old competitors such as Twitter, and Tumblr, I suppose Mark Zuckerburg really needed something new to market his social platform. In order to build long term relationships with users, or in Zuckerburg’s sense, customers, he created new value for customers through the new Timeline Facebook layout. Whether customers are satisfied with the result and treat it as a superior value is a completely different story. As the author of the marketing blog stated, many Facebook users hate the new layout since anyone can dig up the past with a simple click.

What interest me though, are not people’s emotional reactions, but rather, their physical actions to counter Timeline. Instead of switching to other social platforms, users are actually accepting this change by deleting so called “friends” off Facebook, and spending hours of precious time to reset all privacy options regarding past posts, photos, and virtually anything found on Timeline. Some even shut down their old account and created new ones to embrace Timeline. One would think that people would shut down the account and end their relationships with Facebook. However, the simple truth is that regardless of profile changes, consumers still like the service and their social existences. Even if you, yourself, want to delete Facebook, all your friends are still advocates. As long as they remain, you would be the one left out. In consumers’ eyes, there is still nothing that can replace Zuckerburg’s genius creation as it already offers the precise value that customers want – to be able to connect with friends no matter where you are, and to listen to their stories through Newsfeed.      

I have yet switched to Timeline because I really do not want to see my past but who knows.. maybe one day I will jump on the bandwagon too.