Thursday Facebook introduced some of the biggest changes seen on Facebook since its launch. So many changes, that its hard to keep track.

Design

Facebook hasn’t said specifically about how the brand pages functionality will change, but we definitely know DESIGN will be one of the first things marketers will need to update.  The example above was created as a “mock-up” and isn’t really Red Bull’s page.  It’s just an idea of how it could look.

Marketers turned Publishers

We’re used to calling ourselves nightlife marketers.  Now, more than ever, we’ll be “nightlife publishers” on Facebook.  Facebook that needs to be programmed, you’ll need to get people to share and interact with more content.

From ‘Like’ to ‘Take Action’

Before on Facebook it was about getting people to ‘Like’ the brand, but now, it’s about getting people to take social actions enabled by that brand.

For example, if a consumer posts an update about a great time they had last night at a venue, that’s a prime opportunity for a nightclub.

With Facebook’s redesign, consumers will be creating a “digital autobiography” in which brands will have to integrate themselves. First Facebook became the digital ID of everyone, and now it will try to gather our whole life story.  Think back to last night’s party….but now I can see my entire party career on a timeline!

Thinking of marketing as storytelling isn’t a new concept, but the redesign will extend the metaphor. Sponsored Stories, an ad unit Facebook introduced earlier this year, are a good exampleof marketing messages that could be of interest to consumers and their friends. How? Instead of offering basic information, like “Richard checked in at Mansion Nightclub,” something more specific such as “Richard checked in at the Mansion Nightclub on 12th Street and ordered a bottle with friends,” might be a relevant part of that consumer’s life that day and of interest to friends.

The change will require new thinking from marketers who had merely tried to accumulate as many fans and “Likes” as possible. “Like” is “a little less relevant now,” and that marketers will have to work harder to earn their place in news feeds. Your content is going to need to be absolutely amazing.

You actually have to deliver something of value to a customer rather than just being a person spamming.

The New Facebook

So here’s a play by play that will help nightlife venue owners and event planners, get the run down on the changes.

1. Timeline — a newsreel of your life. A complete redesign of its profile page, Facebook is introducing Timeline. This is a stream of info about you — the photos you’ve posted, all your status updates, the apps you’ve used, even the places you’ve visited on a world map — that scrolls all the way back to your birth. It encourages you to post more stuff about your past, such as baby pictures, using Facebook as a scrapbook.

The further back in Timeline you go, the more Facebook compresses the information so that you’re only seeing the more exciting parts of your life. You can customize this by clicking on a star next to a status, say, or enlarging a picture.

Timeline is in beta now, and will be opt-in to start. In the long run, it will become the new default profile page.

2. Like something? Now you can [verb] any [noun]. Remember when all you could do to something on Facebook — a video, a comment, a product, a person — was Like it? Pretty soon that’s going to be a thing of the past. The social network has launched Facebook Gestures, which means that Facebook’s partners and developers can turn any verb into a button.

So you’ll start seeing the option to tell the world you’re planing on going out, for example, or waiting in line at an event, or Listening to a certain tunes.

3. Facebook apps only ask permission once to share stories on your behalf. Although not as big a deal as the Timeline, this  may be one of the more controversial. Previously, apps had to ask every time they shared information about you in your profile. Now, the first time you authorize the app, it will tell you what it’s going to share about you.

But you don’t have to worry about this app stuff clogging your news feed, because …

4. All “lightweight” information is going to the Ticker. Status updates, photos from an event or a party, changes in relationship status: these are the kinds of things you want to see from your friends when you look at your news feed. Who killed whom in Mafia Wars? Who planted what in FarmVille? Not so much. So that kind of trivial detail has been banished to the Ticker, a real-time list of things your friends are posting now that scrolls down the side of your screen. This will change how events will have to be promoted and will start some new trends.

Facebook has more users and more engagement than ever. Facebook has hit 800 million users, and most of them are active. The social network just saw a new record for the most visitors in one day: an eye-popping 500 million. So as far as Google + goes.. it is still a far second to Facebook.