• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, February 16, 2012

Facebook will open up its Timeline feature for brands later this month, according to an Ad Age report citing executives familiar with the company’s plans. To date, the new photo-centric profile feature had been available only to individual Facebook users. But the company is expected to formally introduce Timeline for brands at its first-ever fMC event, a day-long conference in New York on Feb. 29 geared toward marketers.

Facebook had announced it would extend Timeline for companies when it first announced the new feature and revamped profile page in September. Since then, its been gradually rolling out Timeline to users on an opt-in basis. The new pages for brands will reportedly be tested first with a small group of partners before being expanded to more marketers.

Facebook yesterday released early results of more than 60 brands that have created apps with custom verbs such as “listening” or “cooking” that automatically generate posts to users’ Timelines. With their own Timelines, more companies may be encouraged to create their own apps using Facebook’s Open Graph platform.

Beth McCabe, VP, social marketing and technology at Digitas, said Timeline will challenge brands to go beyond putting just microsites in page tabs. “Custom actions and verbs will be even more valuable, which will force brands to create experiences that are social at the core. More than ever, the content brands themselves post will need to be engaging because aggregation will push unpopular content into a black hole,” she said.