New Facebook Timeline redesign released to New Zealand shows single-columns, inline About tabs

Facebook’s single column design was spotted in the wild in October, when the social network was testing some potential profile changes with a few lucky users. Now it appears that the single-column update is starting to show up in New Zealand, according to TheNextWeb.

The new single column design vertically aligns posts that you and your friends have shared on your Timeline like it was in the old days to emphasize the user-generated content. This column that sits on the left-side of the Timeline has been given slightly larger retail space on the page. Everything in right-side of the column including recent activities, friends list, and the Facebook games that you’ve played will generally be smaller.

With the changes, highlight posts – the ones that you star – will no longer be stretched to cover the width of the Timeline. It will however still stay at the top of your Timeline as the first post.

In the updated Timeline rolled out to New Zealand, we’re also getting a first-look at Facebook’s redesigned “About” section – the top bar that houses the thumbnail box images of your photos, friends, Likes, and for some of us the number of subscribers we may have. ABC first noticed this redesign late last month and Facebook responded by confirming the testing. The social network explained itself by saying that inline tabs in lieu of thumbnails would simplify navigating the Timeline.

There are some other new additions (and subtractions) that you might not recognize from a screen shot. Relationship information has been removed altogether and hidden from view on the Timeline. Second, if you click on the “More” tab on the inline About section, it now opens up a sub-list of activities including music, books, TV shows, and data from Open Graph apps like Instagram and Spotify about what you’ve liked, watched, read, or listened to.

Facebook didn’t have any details to share, which is typical, meaning that releasing the update to New Zealand may be part of a larger trial run to smooth out any kinks. But we expect the update to arrive to the rest of the world probably in a matter of weeks, if not earlier.