The Facebook Blog

Originally Published on Thursday, September 22, 2011:

Since the beginning of Facebook, your profile has been the place where you tell your story. People use it to share everything from the small stuff, like their thoughts on an article, to the most important events of their lives, like the photos of their wedding or the birth of their child.

The evolution of your profile

Back in the early days of Facebook, your profile was pretty basic – just your name, a photo, where you went to school…stuff you'd cover in the first five minutes you met someone.

Over time, your profile evolved to better reflect how you actually communicate with your friends. Now you can can share photos of what you did last weekend, and updates about how you feel today.

But since the focus is on the most recent things you posted, more important stuff slips off the page. The photos of your graduation get replaced by updates about what you had for breakfast.

Say you're catching up with an old friend – would you rather find out that they had eggs this morning, or hear about their new dream job?

The way your profile works today, 99% of the stories you share vanish. The only way to find the posts that matter is to click "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page. Again. And again.

Imagine if there was an easy way to rediscover the things you shared, and collect all your best moments in a single place.

Introducing timeline – a new kind of profile

With timeline, now you have a home for all the great stories you've already shared. They don't just vanish as you add new stuff.

Timeline is wider than your old profile, and it's a lot more visual.  The first thing you'll notice is the giant photo right at the top. This is your cover, and it's completely up to you which of your photos you put here.

As you scroll down past your cover, you'll see your posts, photos and life events as they happened in time. You choose what's featured on your timeline. You can star your favorites to double their size or hide things altogether.

Filling in the blanks

If important parts of your story aren't included on your timeline, you can go back to when they happened and add them.

Or go to your private activity log. This is where you'll find everything you shared since you joined Facebook. Click on any post to feature it on your timeline so your friends can see it, too.

Add apps to your timeline

Introducing a new kind of social app that lets you show the things you like to do on your timeline – the music you listen to, the recipes you try, the runs you take and more.

These apps also help you discover what your friends are up to. You can even join in if you want: play the song they're listening to, or watch the same TV show.

You can start adding some of these new apps today, but timeline won't be available for a few weeks.

When you get your timeline, you can choose to publish it immediately or take a few days to review what's there and add anything that's missing.

Now, you and your friends will finally be able to tell all the different parts of your story – from the small things you do each day to your biggest moments. What will you create? We can't wait to find out.

Sam Lessin, a product manager at Facebook, is looking forward to adding the photo of his elephant-powered wedding to his timeline.

With the Subscribe button, we're making it easier to do both. In the next few days, you'll start seeing this button on friends' and others' profiles. You can use it to:

1. Choose what you see from people in News Feed
2. Hear from people, even if you're not friends
3. Let people hear from you, even if you're not friends

Choose What You See in News Feed

You're already getting your friends' posts in News Feed. With the Subscribed button, you can choose how much you see from them:

• All updates: Everything your friend posts
• Most updates: The amount you'd normally see
• Important updates only: Just highlights, like a new job or move

You can also decide what types of updates you see. For example, you could see just photos from one friend, no stories about games from another, and nothing at all from someone else.

Choosing what you see is optional. If you don't want to change what you see from someone, just ignore the button.

Subscribe to Interesting People

The Subscribe button also lets you hear from interesting people you're not friends with—like journalists, artists and political figures.

If you see a Subscribe button on your favorite blogger's profile, this means you can subscribe. Just click the button to get their public updates right in your News Feed.

Just like with friends, you can choose how many and what types of updates you see after you've subscribed.

Get Your Own Subscribers

If you'd like to share your public updates with more than just friends, you can get a Subscribe button on your profile, too. People who subscribe to you will get posts you set as "Public" in their News Feeds. This is an entirely optional feature – you need to opt in.

To let people subscribe, go to the Subscribe Page and click Allow Subscribers.

Once you allow subscribers, you can decide who can comment and what notifications you get. You'll also see a Subscribers tab on your profile, where you can see who subscribes to you.

Let Us Know What You Think

We'd love to know how you feel about the Subscribe button. Contact us to give feedback!

Learn More

To learn more about the Subscribe button or allow subscribers, visit the Help Center.

Lists have existed for several years, but you've told us how time-consuming it is to organize lists for different parts of your life and keep them up to date.

To make lists incredibly easy and even more useful, we're announcing three improvements:

• Smart lists - You'll see smart lists that create themselves and stay up-to-date based on profile info your friends have in common with you--like your work, school, family and city.
• Close Friends and Acquaintances lists - You can see your best friends' photos and posts in one place, and see less from people you're not as close to.
• Better suggestions - You can add the right friends to your lists without a lot of effort.

Friend Lists are completely optional. If you don't like lists, you don't have to use them.

Smart Lists

Managing lists is boring. That's why smart lists do the work for you. To start, we'll offer you smart lists for:

• Work
• School
• Family
• City

For instance, if you list Boston College as a school you've attended and your friends John and Sarah do too, then you would instantly have a smart list called "Boston College" with John and Sarah on it. This means that if you're having a grad party or a college reunion, you can easily share photos with just your college friends, without bothering other people you know.

You can also add or remove friends manually to make the lists even more accurate.

Close Friends and Acquaintances Lists

• Close Friends list - Add your best friends to your Close Friends list and you'll see everything they post in News Feed. You can even jump straight to a view of your News Feed that only shows their photos and news. You can also receive notifications when they post updates, so you don't miss anything important.

• Acquaintances list - Add friends like old classmates or business contacts to your Acquaintances list and you'll see less of them in your News Feed. We'll still show you important things they post -- like when they get married or move to a new city -- so you don't lose touch completely.

Okay, what about your boss or the few other people you like but just don't want to share with on Facebook? You can add these folks to your Restricted list and they will only see your Public posts. You'll still be friends on Facebook so you can send them messages or tag them in a post if you want to connect to them from time to time. It's totally up to you.

Unlike your smart lists for your work, school, family and city, we don't create Close Friends and Acquaintances lists for you. Since these types of relationships are unique, it's important for you to decide who goes in your Close Friends, Acquaintances or Restricted lists -- if you use them at all.

If you created your own lists in the past, you can still use them. You can also continue to create whatever lists you want in the future. When you post something to a list that you've created -- including your Close Friends and Acquaintances lists -- no one will be able to see the title of the list.

The people on the list you've shared with will be able to see each others' names. This gives them more context. For example, if I see that a post is shared with my five closest friends, I am much more likely to comment freely on it than I would be if I didn't know who else could see the post.

Better Suggestions

We provide suggestions for your smart lists, Close Friends, Acquaintances, and your own lists, making them easier to create and update.

When you add someone as a friend or confirm a friendship request, you'll be able to add the friend to any of your existing lists.

See and Share With Exactly Who You Want

Each of your lists has its own News Feed, where you can see just the photos, status updates and other posts from the people on the list. To view list News Feeds, look for the Lists section on the left side of your homepage and click the list you want to see.

Whenever you feel like sharing something with a narrower set of friends, simply use the dropdown audience selector in the sharing tool and pick one of your lists.

You can also use lists to help control who sees what on your profile, using the audience selector next to each detail on your profile.

Improved Friend lists will be available to everyone this week and will be rolling out on mobile over the next few weeks.  We'd love to hear your feedback at facebook.com/ListsTeam.