But it's not a better and prettier interface. It's just awful. Granted, the only ads that appear on a Timeline page are in a narrow column off to the side (I didn't even know there were any ads until I specifically checked for them after reading this article), so I'm not sure how valid this conspiracy theory is. But it doesn't change the fact that Timeline looks horrible.
It is worth noting that every change Facebook has ever made has been deemed awful by a significant number of people. I'm not certain Facebook, or anyone for that matter, could make an update that satisfies everyone.
It's important to keep in mind the scale of Facebook's user base. At nearly 900,000,000 users upsetting 1% of the users with a change creates 9,000,000 angry people.
I think its interesting how mixed the response is. I'm rather indifferent on timeline, but I've talked to designer/UI/UX people who both love it and hate it, for various reasons. Apparently different people like different things.
Sponsored stories will begin appearing in the Timeline. That was the intent behind removing the straight chronological river (newsfeed), to be able to place ads into your stream in a way that looks more natural.
I think how it looks is subjective. I like the new look of it and how it's easy to see older content where before it was nearly impossible. I also think the idea of having these kind of communication records will be interesting later on when a younger generation can look back on someone's life experiences. Today we have very few of these kinds of records (outside of maybe some photos and letters) unless your family was very diligent about its history.
