Facebook Timeline – It Will Turn Consumer Users Into Developers – Future User Experience Is Coding

I have been saying since I left my last venture that the user centric model will emerge. It has and it’s exciting.

Facebook Timeline, announced today at F8 developer conference, hits my passion the intersection of computer science and social science Disclosure: I was the first to coin this term and it has been SiliconANGLE’s motto since our founding. It’s Apple’s and now Facebook’s core tenant. I love it.

Here is the angle on Timeline that no one is talking about. Timeline won’t be obvious at first but it will absolutely turn a new generation of users into “Developers”. The Internet is now converged – cloud, mobile, social. The new generation of users will take to Timeline like kids take to candy. The enagement aspect is compelling but more compelling is the customization and connections. As a programmer I used to love to code when people where involved and connected to the project (and code). Now we can “code up” our life interactions and let Facebook Platform do the rest. I can see this clear as day.

Today’s users want exciting environments not some boring email like program – yes I’m talking to you Google. It has to be game like with eye popping “screen candy”.

So I predict Facebook Timeline will be ok in short term maybe some tweaks to get people comfortable with it. That being said the real greatness will be when the “consumers” (aka the users) start coding away.

If Facebook intended this to be the case then kudos – if not then pay attention because that is the ultimate user experience – connecting, coding, sharing, and having fun. It’s “lighting in a bottle” for Facebook.

Facebook – Don’t screw it up. For Google another shot at G+ is need. Specifically, Google has to change the game on Facebook.

As an aside when I’m using Timeline all I can think about is the use of Hadoop and big data to pull this off.