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Facebook looking into a slimmer, trimmer Timeline layout

The social network tests a new profile layout with one only one column of posts. This time, folks may actually like it.

Donna Tam Staff Writer / News
Donna Tam covers Amazon and other fun stuff for CNET News. She is a San Francisco native who enjoys feasting, merrymaking, checking her Gmail and reading her Kindle.
Donna Tam
Inside Facebook

Facebook is testing out a new, slimmer Timeline layout featuring a single column of posts instead of the current double column. The test layout keeps the boxes that highlight friends and activities to the right.

The social network is currently rolling out the test, first noticed by Inside Facebook, to a small number of users.

"This is a new design Facebook is testing with a small percentage of people to make navigating timeline even easier," a Facebook spokeswoman told CNET.

WhenTimeline was first introduced, it prompted mixed reviews from users, with some hating the change. But really, any changes to the social network's design seem to send folks into a frenzy.

This news, however, may actually make some users happy since they won't have to look back and forth between the columns when looking at posts. The layout eliminates the timeline format, removing the line separating the columns, but keeps the bar of dates to the right of the right column for browsing through posts from different years and months.

The right hand column keeps the existing boxes such as "Recent Activity," "Friends," "Photos" and "Likes," as well as any app activity displayed by users. But with the new design, the boxes are a smaller size than posts. Below those boxes, the test design features only whitespace where the current design would display more posts.

 
Inside Facebook