Facebook Timeline Pages update already adopted by 8 million

In one week after Facebook rolled out the new Timeline design for its Pages platform, 8 million corporate pages have already made the change. This comes after Facebook first rolled out the new design for individuals in December, which many still either don't want to use or simply don't even know exists. In the corporate world, though, that kind of ambivalence and/or lack of knowledge just doesn't fly.

If you wanted to sum up the difference between how individual users use Facebook and how companies use Facebook in one word, it would be this: money. Companies simply cannot afford to look like they're out-of-date when it comes to their social media presence. It would kill them. As a result, no matter how the new Timeline design affects them, no matter how much worse they think the new page looks, they have to do it.

But that's pretty obvious. The fact that 8 million corporate users or fan page curators switched so early is just a huge symbol of how important Facebook is to today's commerce. A Facebook product manager was quoted as telling VentureBeat, "a phase shift for the company overall and how we think about identity ... We always start with people. We're Facebook, that's kind of what we do."

[via VentureBeat]