14 DAY TRIAL // Just as users were beginning to settle down, not that they had a choice, with their new Timeline profiles, Facebook has begun rolling out the Timeline for pages, just as the rumors predicted. It's a huge change and there are going to be quite a lot of people that are not going to like it. But it may not be all bad.
Facebook is not calling it Timeline for pages, rather it just says it's revamping Facebook Pages.
Just like with regular users, page admins have a period to get accustomed to the change and curate their timeline before it goes live for everyone, but it will go live for everyone whether admins like it or not.
"We are excited to announce the new Pages! The new Pages helps media organizations express their identity through features like cover photo and Page timeline. It also allows Pages to reach people on the web and mobile and respond to people in a quick, more personal way," Facebook wrote.
Apart from the new look, there are some things that page admins should like about the new design. For one, they can pin posts which will stay on top of the timeline for up to a week, to highlight important stories.
They can also start using private messages to talk to fans, though fans have to initiate the conversation, presumably to prevent spam. This is part of a brand new admin dashboard that is also rolling out.
Page admins can already preview how their pages will look like when the new design goes live. They can also customize the timeline, to add or remove entries, photos and so on.
However, they'll have to be done by March 30 when the new design rolls out for everyone whether they like it or not.
The initial reaction to the new pages won't be good, already admins and soon enough regular users will start complaining, loudly, about it. The main criticism is that the new timeline makes it harder for fans to follow stories from one page, like they can now on a page's wall.
But that's only a problem if you're treating a Facebook page as a blog or a news site. However, most people interact with pages via their own feeds, when a post or a photo ends up in their stream, few visit the actual page to keep up with it. Rather, they visit the page to get an overview of what the page is about and find the big stories and the new layout works better for this. Still, it won't satisfy everyone.