Facebook’s Timeline now available worldwide

As of this morning, anyone in the world can turn on Timeline, the new look and feel for Facebook profiles.

In a Facebook official blog post this morning, Facebooker Paul McDonald writes that while everyone on Facebook will automatically get the new Timeline interface over the next several weeks, anyone who wants to get Timeline now can do so from the network’s Introducing Timeline page.

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On that page, you can choose to start using Timeline immediately if Facebook hasn’t automatically rolled it out to you yet. You can also get Facebook’s messaging about how Timeline works and what it looks like.

And of course, you’ll still get the preview period if you elect to start Timeline now. “When you get Timeline, you’ll have seven days to preview what’s there now,” McDonald writes. “This gives you a chance to add or hide whatever you want before anyone else sees it.”

The new profile design was announced last year at f8, Facebook’s developer conference. “We think that people are really going to like these,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the time. “We wanted to design a place that you’re proud to call your home. It’s a completely new aesthetic for Facebook.”

This “new aesthetic” is probably the biggest change you’ll note when you start using Timeline. (For a deep dive into the Timeline design and user experience, see our round-table post with top UI/UX designers.

As we discussed in an in-depth one-on-one chat with Facebook design chief Sam Lessin, the Timeline was set up to mimic real-world scrapbooks and other physical repositories of memories.

Many users have had Timeline for a while already, a fact Facebook deliberately engineered in order to avoid a full-scale user revolt.

“It’s a big product, and there are a lot of different features. But learning it really comes when your mom asks you or when you teach a friend,” said Lessin. “Getting the product early to people who can help with that is how we navigate these things.”