Timelines Are Pointless
Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter show information in reverse chronology. The latest is on the top and as you scroll down, you are taken back in time. This is largely meaningless. Just because something happened recently doesn't make it more important or interesting than something that happened a little earlier. Further, it makes it harder to find something that is more interesting, buried as it is, beneath all the fluff.
Social websites are about people, interactions between people and stuff shared by people. Ideally, the websites should be designed around these and not around a timeline. I would love Facebook to look like so (the same concept could be applied to Twitter as well):
There would be separate sections called 'People' which would group everything that's happened (comments, photo uploads, videos, linked shared) by people, 'Conversations' which would point me to my friends commenting on each other's posts or writing on each other's walls (sorted by most active), 'Photos & Videos' where i could jump in and immediately see personal photos and videos (grouped by people) and 'Shared Stuff' which would show me links, YouTube videos and other shared items.
One could go one step further and add more intelligence to the system, by sorting all these lists by the people closest in my friends' list; the people i interact with the most. The screen could highlight groups which have had action since i last saw them or the ones that it thinks might interest me the most, based on what i have liked or viewed before.
Timelines add no value to social interaction and it is time the chronological stream of news dried up.





