The initial buzz surrounding Facebook's most dramatic user interface and functionality updates ever has subsided. Blind Acre’s first reaction to the changes, which we shared with Business First Columbus following Mark Zuckerberg’s F8 Keynote, was that businesses are going to be deemphasized to some degree, and personal activities and posts will be more prominently featured. This means that business page administrators will need to be much more strategic when generating social content and integrating Facebook into their main website.

The new “news ticker” is the most immediately noticeable change for everyday users, and the open graph is going to give developers and businesses some fun new tools. But let’s cut to the chase. What we’re all really waiting for is the public rollout of Timeline.

There are alot of rumors about when the public rollout of Timeline will take place. Currently, the trending date is October 18th. Regardless of when it rolls out, you don’t need to wait. You can get the Facebook Timeline now. While there are a few nice walk-throughs for getting the new Timeline, most don’t give quite enough detail. Hopefully, Blind Acre's guide makes it a little easier for you!

1.) While logged into Facebook, go to the Facebook Developers Section. It will ask you to give permission to access your personal information. You must "allow" to proceed, or our little exercise ends here.

2.) After giving permission, you should default to the "App” page. But just in case, along the top, you will see several tabs: Documentation /Support / Blog / App. Click on “App”.

3.) Now, in the top right of your screen, you will see a button that says “+Create New App”. Click it.

4.) A pop-up will ask you to name the app. You can make the name up, it won’t matter or be visible once this process is complete. Just be sure you don't use capital letters or you will receive an error message.

5.) You will be prompted to fill one of those nonsense word security checks. A necessary evil.

6.) Facebook will ask you for your cell phone number so that a confirmation code may be texted. The text comes quickly, and you simply redeem that code when prompted. You may get caught in a loop of pop-ups around this point, just keep at it... it was trial and error for all of us when working through it.

7.) Once you have confirmed your code, you will see the words “open graph” in the left hand column. Click on it.

8.) You will be asked to fill in two words of your chosing (Facebook gives you some suggestions) and then click “Get Started”.

9.) Now you need work through a slightly convoluted page wherein they ask for different tenses of the words you just filled in.  You shouldn't need to change anything, just scroll down to the bottom and click “Save Changes”.

10.) From here there are few more intuitive steps, which Facebook guides you through. Just keep clicking “yes, save” etc.

11.) In the final step, you will be prompted to “Save and Create” at the bottom of the page. Click it.

12.) Now. Head on over to your Facebook profile, where you will find an invitation to launch Timeline, along with a list of all your friends who are already using it. Note them so you can find them later.

13.) Accept the invite, publish it, and enjoy being ahead of the curve!