I was instantly freaked out when one morning I woke up to Facebook’s new interface. I initially thought that they’re just geeking out to be more like Google+.  Or it could be that they wanted a more real-time approach a la Twitter style, and created this ultra-realtime friends’ update stream taking up the right side of my screen. I am guilty of trying out this whole reverting to old Facebook by setting your language to English UK.  Little did I know that these changes are a prelude to some interesting things Mark Zuckerberg and his team will introduce, rethinking the entire social perspective.

Today, Facebook’s father, together with his young executives and a bunch of other CEO’s from partner companies like Netflix, Yahoo and Spotify, have set the stage ablaze with thrilling but digestible updates coming soon to the social platform.  I never imagined that I will sit down for an hour or two and truly enjoy watching social geeks do what they do best. Here are some spoilers that struck me during f8 2011.

Timeline: Personalized Social Memory

When Zuck uttered the word Timeline, Twitter popped right into my thought bubble.  But as the presentation progressed, it became clear that while it may work around the idea of Twitter’s timeline and their news feed, Facebook Timeline looks a lot smarter and customizable.  It only captures major events of your life, which you determine, and has focus on patterned activities.  Series of activities and updates of lesser value are now what we see on the right portion of the screen rolling down so quickly with information that might not be of interest to us, but ultimately records our friends’ every Facebook activities and movements to become a part of this larger picture.

Timeline revolves around three core dimensions: all your stories, all your apps and express who you are.  The ability to personalize Timeline will allow users to only feature the most important events in your life.  It’s a blank canvass big enough for anyone’s story.  Those apps with integral social design features a “frictionless” experience, as Zuck put it, that would eradicate the box that disturbs you in the middle of a game you’re playing asking if you want to share your accomplishments on your wall.  Since it is a social app by nature, all activities logged using it will automatically flash on your wall; no need to habitually click “publish” buttons.

A big picture on top of the Timeline is a big banner of “self-expression.” The photo that eats up almost a quarter of the screen is already a summary of who you are.  The snapshots within your Timeline will most likely tell everyone what your interests are, what your childhood was like, or simply what inspires you.

Overall, Timeline is the day’s glitziest highlight.

Apps Integration: Making Everything Social

Social TV, social movies, social news, social music, social radio—just about everything could be converted into a social act thanks to Facebook’s alliance with app developers.  Two leaders of arguably the most innovative companies in the planet have shared the stage with Zuck: Daniel Ek of Spotify and Reed Hastings of Netflix.  Both organizations have been rumoured to integrate with Facebook since months ago.  Today, their products and services went fully social and dropped the apprehension borne out of the idea of competition vulnerability and replaced it with the mindset of pioneering a potential social breakthrough.

With apps integration, friends can listen to the same music at the same time, watch movies and read articles.  It could also provide you with a summary of all the great places you’ve visited within a particular time, recipes that you and your friends cooked, routes you and your friends have taken—just one click and you’d be able to “add to timeline” any of these events.

Realtime Serendipity Discovery

Facebook is exploring the core of social with its open graph, now with realtime serendipity.  With feeds coming in realtime, you have the chance to discover new music through your friend’s timeline or browse through your friend’s playlist, viewing their all-time favorite albums and songs.  Since the newsfeed will now recognizes patterns, you would most likely be able to learn that you and your friend have the same taste in music, movies, artists or hobbies—something that you can share and talk about simultaneously.

The Evolution of Profile

Five years ago, the Facebook profile format was plain and simple.  Information written here was the basics that you would tell someone you just met for the first five minutes. In 2008, we saw a richer profile content that allowed us to key in perhaps the more pragmatic side of ourselves. This year, world’s favorite social hub is taking users to the heart of Facebook experience—updates that will remodel the world “social” in the world of web.

I have always seen Facebook as my podium for individualism.  But it’s becoming a modern scrapbook that will give a more visceral feel of who I am. I’m glad they incorporated privacy settings into every item shared under this new format, emphasizing that we can not only pick what content to share, but also where it’s shared, how it’s shared and who it’s shared with.