By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-04-05 10:37:07 | Word Count: 664
Facebook has done it again. It seems like they roll out a new feature every week. This time, Facebook has introduced a tool that will transform your profile into a page. This means that anyone who has a Facebook profile will now be able to have a Facebook page. For many “regular” people, this tool may seem pointless. But for celebrities, businesses and charitable organizations, converting to a Facebook page just makes sense. At your request, Facebook is willing to take your profile picture and friends and transfer this to the new page. Your old friends from your profile will automatically become people that “like” your page. People will no longer need to request you as a friend and wait for you to accept them.
No other information from your profile will be transferred. Once you switch over to a page you can no longer go back to having a profile so you should safeguard your remaining information by downloading it and saving it. This tool is geared towards businesses, charitable organizations and high profile individuals. There are actually six categories of users that are encouraged to make the switch. The categories include local business or place, brand or product, cause or community, entertainment, company/organization or institution, and artist/band or public figure.
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The object of the conversion is to make profiles that have less to do with intimate relationships more public friendly. Realistically, profiles that fall in these categories don™t necessarily have real friends. It is more of a “like” situation. With a friend maximum of five-thousand, many public figures and businesses can™t accommodate their fans and patrons when using a profile. Converting to a page should allow businesses, brands and public figures to interact with the public in a more realistic and practical way. Pop stars and Fortune 500 companies don™t actually have that many real friends on their Facebook profile.
Unfortunately Facebook hasn™t exactly spelled out all the details of what transforming your profile would mean. It is up in the air as to whether some of the traditional profile features like wall posting will be available. How the page will function is a little unclear. I™m not sure if it will be interactive or more akin to a regular home page with links. The fact that Facebook users possibly may not be able to leave a message is potentially a good thing for companies and people in the public eye.
It will be fascinating to see how many profiles take the plunge. I™m pretty sure that many will be resistant until they catch a glimpse of the pages after others make the move. Not being able to go back to your profile seems a little bit too permanent and scary. I think that users should be able to give the profile to page switch a trial run before fully committing to the whole process. Until then I will wait to see what Facebook will roll out next? Only time will tell.
