Facebook made some notable announcements recently. They range from a holistic vision of a seamless, semantically enabled Web of human relationships to a simple “like” button, which will soon be omnipresent on the Internet. The moves are ambitious, giving even fast-moving rivals like Twitter reason to worry. Still, the simple fact that gets lost in the rush towards ubiquitous social connectivity is that Facebook users still don’t know what they are sharing, with whom, or why it matters. In short: Facebook remains a privacy minefield.


Tracking Your Tastes
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described what he calls the “Social Graph.” It’s basically a map of all of our social relationships and the things that we care about. The Graph isn’t just about whom you know, but also what you want. Sharing photos with friends is great, but sharing camera recommendations is monetizable. This is the promise of the Semantic Web, a collection of links and objects that can be easily shared and repurposed among sites; except on the Social Graph, all the lines eventually run through Facebook. Part of Facebook’s plan is the universal “like” button. It may seem like a minor introduction, but it isn’t. Sure, there are lots of ways to indicate that you like a story online: Digg, Buzz, Twitter, Reddit, and countless others, but those are mostly about getting people to read something. What if you just, well, like something? until now, the most granular measure of our human intent has been our search terms, and Google has done an exceedingly good job of connecting that intent with advertisers who want to capitalize on it.


Facebook’s Flaws
As much as I love Twitter and even Foursquare, Facebook has always been among my least-favorite social-media sites, and its graduation to “platform” status hasn’t done anything to change my mind. It truly is an application platform; there are more than 550,000 applications on Facebook, accessed by more than 70 percent of users. I find Facebook’s interface cluttered, the applications moronic, and the Terms of Service opaque—at best. It is AOl, circa 1996— without the service fees. Clearly, I am in the minority. Facebook has more than 400 million active users worldwide, and 50 percent of those users log on every day. These users create and share more than 25 billion Web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, and photo albums. Facebook considers such items “objects”—bits of code that can be created, shared, exported, imported, synchronized, and monetized. As Zuckerberg has modestly put it: “This is the most transformative thing we’ve ever done for the Web.” Transformative, for sure, but I would humbly suggest it will be better for Facebook than the Internet as a whole. I agree these products go a long way towards creating “instantly social and personalized experiences on the Web,” but it will come at a price. And that price is privacy.


A World of Likes
“like” a movie on IMDB, and all of your friends will get updates to that effect. For that matter, every time you look at a movie on IMDB, you will see a list of friends who have “liked” that page. It is a powerful tool, but my bet is most Facebook users will have no idea where, when, or how their likes will show up on the Web. Or for how long. In the past, Facebook would ask you to share your data with each app that wanted to access your profile. But now, make something “public” and it will appear throughout the Facebook ecosystem. In other words, be careful about who you friend because your information will show up when you visit one of these preapproved sites. Indeed, the Graph API makes it possible to pull all sorts of personal data directly into third-party sites. If you want to know what you are sharing, go to graph.facebook.com/markzuckerberg, but replace Zuck’s name with yours. Or try your friend’s username, just for kicks.


A New Reality for Users
Facebook will say that all of this is optin, and it is. Hell, no one is making you use Facebook at all—yet. But the truth is that Facebook users don’t really understand their privacy settings. This is the same problem Google had when it launched Buzz, and for which is has now been criticized by ten European countries. But Google and Facebook are very different. For Google, having users share private information is a constant risk and an unfortunate side affect of its services. For Facebook, it is a business model. And the average Facebook user? For better or worse, they are going to get a lot more exposure as well.

Source of Information : PC Magazine July 2010

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I find it endlessly amusing how so many articles are written about Facebook and its cavalier lack of concern over privacy issues (case in point: Read Dan Costa’s column). A large community is up in arms over the fact that Facebook consistently changes the way it operates and constantly resets the privacy settings of the users to nil, as in NO PRIVACY. This amuses me because it seems as if the majority of Facebook users don’t even know about or care about the privacy settings. Once in a while some old lady is flabbergasted by the fact that anyone can write on her wall, sure. And once in a blue moon some teenage girl says she “didn’t know” her teachers could see her comments. All the while the users of Facebook are increasing by the millions as the complaints are increasing by the thousands, thus amounting to nothing of consequence. Now there is a movement to create an open-source version of the social network to address all these concerns, and it may or may not be successful, but it doesn’t matter since most users have so little regard for their own privacy. They’re too busy publishing humiliating pictures of themselves on Facebook, Flickr and elsewhere. It always seems to be a good idea at the time. And why do American continue to do these dumb things? It’s a unique reflection of the short-term thinking that plagues the culture. We always hear about this phenomenon regarding the activities of American corporations, which always seem to be thinking short-term to appease the investors. They do things quarter by quarter instead of thinking toward the long future.


Thinking ahead —a Thousand Years Often Americans are told to look at Asia. That’s how to do it! Think long-term. The Chinese think thousands of years down the road, but Americans cannot even comprehend that concept. We like concepts like “live for today!” and “live as if it’s your last day on earth.” So what if you post a picture of yourself tongue kissing someone’s ear while wearing face paint and holding a Bud Light, obviously plastered? Who expected a prospective employer to dredge up that old pic and change his mind about you? Oops. I’m constantly reminded of the early days of daily blog diaries, when dumb bloggers would profusely apologize for skipping a day of blogging. No matter that the blog was about a mostly banal life and what the cat was doing, or what they ate that day with the catch-all eponymous descriptor, “Yum!” You know, those people who have since moved on to Facebook or onto real lives.


Busted by Blogs
Every few weeks one of them would make a huge fuss in the “blogosphere” about how he got fired from his job because of something he wrote in his blog. One woman, working in some horrible cubicle environment, as I recall, wrote some of the most catty and mean descriptions of all the people in the office including the boss. She was stunned when the blog ended up on the boss’ computer and the guy fired her. A similar fate was meted out to the flight attendant who posted silly pictures of herself. One of my favorites happened when I was working at TechTV and some chipper new hire came in telling us how great it was working there. A cohort quickly found his blog or LiveJournal entry with him saying. “I just got hired at TechTV. This is the dumbest place I’ve ever worked. I’m going to quit as soon as I can” followed by an excoriation of the staff. What an idiot.
And yes, this is a function of short-term thinking as well as idiocy. He reckoned his message would go out to his few pals and that would be the end of it. So where does this sort of thinking come from? The American penchant for fear mongering. Scaring the public, as a whole, into thinking they are going to be killed any minute. I grew up during the duck-and-cover era, when a nuclear holocaust seemed imminent. People built fallout shelters. It has always been something. Now people are freaked out by a terrorist attack. We’ve been on Orange alert permanently! Why bother thinking ahead when the end is near! Well, the end hasn’t come, but it will for those who don’t consider the long-term effects of what they are doing online today. Advice: stop it!

Source of Information : PC Magazine July 2010

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A HACKeR NAMeD Kirllos has a rare deal for anyone who wants to spam, steal, or scam on Facebook: an unprecedented number of user accounts, offered at rock-bottom prices. Researchers at VeriSign’s iDefense group recently spotted Kirllos selling Facebook usernames and passwords in an underground hacker forum, but what really caught their attention was the volume of credentials he had for sale—1.5 million accounts. iDefense doesn’t know whether Kirllos’s accounts are legitimate, and Facebook hasn’t responded to messages seeking comment. If they are legitimate, Kirllos has the account details of about one in every 300 Facebook users. The asking price varies from $25 to $45 per 1000 accounts, depending on the number of contacts each user has. To date, Kirllos seems to have sold close to 700,000 accounts, says Rick Howard, VeriSign director of cyber intelligence. The prices Kirllos is asking for are extremely cheap compared with what other crooks are charging. In its most recent Internet Security Threat Report, Symantec found that e-mail usernames and passwords typically went for between $1 to $20 per account; Kirllos wants as little as $0.025 per Facebook account. More-coveted credit card or bank account details can go for much more, ranging from $0.85 to $30 for credit card numbers and $15 to $850 for top-quality online bank accounts.

Source of Information : PC World July 2010

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You can’t have a social networking site without avenues to communicate, and Facebook has plenty. You’ve already learned how to express yourself on your profile page by writing on your Wall. This particular form of communication is generated by you for the purpose of letting people know what you’re up to. When they pop by your profile page, they see your activities and any status updates you post to the Wall. You’ve also learned how to add a status update directly from the Home page so it appears out in the news feed for others to see on their Home pages, too.

Wall communication goes both ways—friends can write on your Wall, and you can also write on your friends’ Walls to communicate with them. You might write a new posting, or comment on existing postings on a friend’s Wall. Anyone else who views the friend’s page can also see your postings and comments.

If you join a group, you can communicate through postings on the group Wall, “Joining Groups.” Like any other Wall communication, when you share postings in a group, everyone in the group can see them.

Communicating with Wall postings can be a bit limiting at times. If you’re looking to share a longer chunk of text than will fit in a status update, for example, you can use Facebook’s Notes application. Notes are perfect for sharing larger amounts of text, and you can use the feature to communicate by blogging. With the Notes application, you can even include some basic HTML coding to enhance the note text.

If you’re looking for more direct, less public ways to communicate, you can use the Facebook Inbox to send and receive messages. Just like any email client you use, the Inbox has options for reading messages, creating and sending messages, and organizing received messages. If you’re looking for more immediate communication, try Facebook’s live chat feature. You can talk with your friends (via your keyboard) who are logged on at the same time as you.

Finally, you can also communicate through sending Facebook actions and gifts. Sounds, weird, right? Don’t knock it until you try it!

Source of Information : Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 Minutes

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Notifications are messages from Facebook to alert you to stories or activities that involve you somehow. If a friend tags you in a note, for example, or joins your group, you’ll see a notification. Some applications you use also generate notifications concerning you automatically. You can view a brief listing of notifications by clicking the Notifications icon on the Applications bar. The icon often has a red number that pops up next to it, indicating how many notifications you have waiting to be read.

For a full-on display of all your notifications, however, you need to open the Notifications tab. Switch over to your Inbox page by clicking the Inbox link in the navigation bar; then click the Notifications tab. This tab displays notifications sent from you or received from others. From here, you can view notifications and control which ones are active.

You can also make your way to the Notifications page by clicking the Notifications icon on the Applications bar (at the very bottom of the Facebook window) and then clicking See All on the menu.

Notifications are grouped chronologically by date, so today’s notifications appear at the top of the page. Depending on the type of notification, you can click a link to read the message. You can use the check boxes on the right side of the page to control which notifications you see. For example, if you’d rather not see feed comments from applications, uncheck its check box. As you’ll quickly learn, the more applications you add to your Facebook experience, the more notifications you’ll see. You can easily stop pesky notifications from annoying applications by turning them off. Simply deselect the individual application’s check box on the Notifications page.

It’s easy to confuse notifications with requests, and with some applications, the information may appear in both formats. Notifications focus on notifying you, like a mini-news bulletin. Requests focus on inviting you to action, such as befriending someone or joining a group. Just remember, requests appear at the top of the Home page over in the right corner. Notifications appear in a shortened menu list when you click the Notifications icon on the Applications bar, or you can see them all on the Notifications page.

You can subscribe to your notifications on Facebook, turning them into an RSS feed (which stands for Really Simple Syndication, formats for web feeds of updated content) that you can read through an RSS reader (like Google Reader or Bloglines). Just click the Your Notifications link just below the notification settings and follow the instructions.


Source of Information : Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 Minutes (2009)

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Whenever you want to see what everyone else is up to, click the Home link on the navigation bar (the blue bar at the top of any Facebook page). The Home page, displays the constantly updating stories, or live stream, that comprise the news feed about your friends and what they’re up to on Facebook. You can read through the list and find out what’s happening, view thumbnails of photos, and find out what silly quizzes they’re taking or what applications they’re using.

You can filter your news feed display using the filters on the left. For example, to view only the status updates of your friends, click Status Updates. To view only new photo postings, click Photos. To return to the regular news feed again, click the News Feed filter. If you have more filters available, you can click the More link to view them. You can use the Create link to create a friends list.

You can choose to hide the stories from people you don’t want to see. Move your mouse pointer over the story and look for a Hide button that appears in the upper-right corner of the story. Click it, and Facebook hides all the stories in the news feed from that particular person. To add them back in again, scroll to the bottom of the Home page and click the Edit Options link. This opens a dialog box that keeps track of people you’ve “hidden” from view. You can add a person back in again at any time.

You can also hide postings from applications in the same way. Just click the Hide button, then click the application name.

Here are a few more things you can do with the news feed:
• You can click a person’s name in your news feed to immediately open the person’s profile page.

• You can add to the person’s story by clicking the Comment link and adding a comment.

• Rather than type up a comment, you can click the Like link in the story.

• You can click a photo to open the album and view a larger picture.

• You can click a link to view the associated web page.

• You can click a video to view a video clip.

• You can click a “take this quiz” or “vote on this poll” or similar link to participate in the same activity listed.

• You can click an application link to add the listed application for yourself.

• When you scroll to the bottom of the Home page, you can click the Older Posts link to view more stories.


Source of Information : Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 Minutes (2009)

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As a social networking site, Facebook acts much like a broadcasting service, sharing news about its members wherever they are. However, rather than tuning in to see general news about everyone on the site or stories selected entirely by Facebook, your news is narrowed down to just the people you know—your friends, family, coworkers, or colleagues. The news that is shared, whether it’s status updates, photos, or the latest group someone joined, is referred to as stories on Facebook. This news is also called feed stories or news feed stories. The information that appears on the Home page is a constant stream of stories about the activities and pursuits of your friends. The official name for this is news feeds. The stories that appear on your profile are called mini-feeds because they’re all about you.

For example, anytime you post a status update on your Wall, it’s a story on your mini-feed—information dedicated to you. When your friend shares a photo, for example, it appears on his Wall as a mini-feed about him. Out on the Home page, both stories may appear listed as news feed stories where other friends you both know can see.

What exactly constitutes as news on Facebook, you may wonder? Anything you do on the site is considered a story. If you join a group, for example, or share a link, it appears as part of your mini-feed, as well as potentially listed in the main news feed. If you don’t want to share all your Facebook activities, you can turn off some of this through your privacy settings.

Another part of this ongoing stream of broadcasting is a Facebook feature called notifications. Notifications are messages from Facebook telling you about something that happened on Facebook involving you somehow, such as being tagged (pointed out) in a photo or if someone wrote on your Wall. Your Facebook notifications appear on the Notifications pop-up list, or they arrive in your Inbox and appear in the Notifications tab. Unlike mini-feeds that are generated by you, or news feeds that detail the activities of others, notifications involve you indirectly. Depending on your settings, some notifications are also sent to your email address.


Source of Information : Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 Minutes (2009)

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Despite the possibilities for exposure and risk, don’t let the fear of privacy and security keep you from enjoying your Facebook experience. You can keep yourself relatively safe just by following a few simple practices:

. First and foremost—use common sense when participating in any online endeavor. If something seems risky, it probably is. If someone from your Facebook network emails you about a getrich plan, you can be sure it’s a scam, so don’t take the bait.

. Never give out personal or sensitive information in a public forum. For example, don’t post your cell phone number so it can be read in everyone’s Facebook newsfeed. You’re just asking for trouble.

. If a Facebook user stalks you or harasses you, you can block their access to your profile and report them to Facebook.

. Although the profile information form has places for it, you’re not required to place personal information of any kind in your profile. For example, if you don’t feel comfortable adding your home or work address and phone numbers, don’t do it. You can share this type of information through a private email on a “need-to-know” basis.

. If you’re worried about spammers, consider using a free email address from a site like Google or Yahoo! for your Facebook account. This can help you protect your main email address from unwanted exposure.

. Always be leery of links to sites outside of Facebook that come to you via friends. Make sure the site is legitimate before giving out information. Phishing, the practice of tricking people into revealing sensitive data, is widespread, but you can usually spot these threats by their poor grammar and typos, so keep your eyes peeled.

. Even though Facebook advocates honesty, people aren’t always what or who they seem to be online. Be skeptical, cautious, and vigilant when it comes to meeting new people online.

. When it comes to deciding whether to post something or not, just ask yourself if your mom or your employer would be comfortable with it. For example, do you really want your mom or your boss to see a picture of you at that wild party last weekend? Better to err on the side of good judgment when it comes to your personal information and pictures.

. Finally, make use of the controls Facebook offers to help you stay safe on the site. Why let useful privacy control settings go to waste?


Source of Information : Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 Minutes (2009)

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Privacy and security are the number-one concerns on the Internet, and are particularly relevant in the world of social networking. Identity theft is growing daily and spammers lurk behind every website trying to nab your email address. It’s more important than ever to guard yourself online. Along with these dangers, a social networking site like Facebook also throws in the risks of humiliation, embarrassment, and criticism if you end up posting information you’re not supposed to or revealing far too much information to the wrong people. So how do you begin to protect yourself and still network freely?

The reality is anything you post on Facebook has the potential to be publicly available. This includes your picture and your profile information, such as political views, relationship status, and so on. Facebook does do all it can to protect your personal information, but things happen, hackers can attack, and so on. It’s easy to think that only people you allow to be your friends on Facebook can view your info, but that’s not the case. There are ways of finding someone’s profile on Facebook. Potential employers, law enforcement, teachers, and anyone else determined to do so can find a way to see your profile. If your privacy settings are lax, even a simple search engine can access your profile.

Companies and third-party developers that partner with Facebook can also access your information when allowed. Per Facebook’s policy, advertisers who sell products on Facebook can access your information, so it’s up to those companies to also safeguard the info. There are hundreds of thirdparty applications available on Facebook, and to make use of them, you must allow them access to your information. In doing so, there is the potential for unscrupulous third-party developers to misuse your data. Because you’ve allowed them access to the info by adding the application to your account, there’s not much Facebook can do about it.

The bottom line is it’s up to you to take steps to protect yourself. Thankfully, there are some strategies you can pursue to help battle privacy and security breaches, and stop them before they ever occur.

Source of Information : Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 Minutes (2009)

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As you can probably guess, anytime you throw together a bunch of people from diverse backgrounds, ages, experiences, political leanings, religions, and computer proficiency, things happen—expectations differ, assumptions are made, worlds collide. Just like interacting in the real world, interacting in the online world takes some skill and diplomacy. Sure, you may have joined Facebook just to have fun with your friends, but maybe your version of fun differs from the people you have assembled on your Friends List. So what are the social do’s and don’ts of using Facebook?

There’s no real guide to interacting other than your own common sense and intuition. As in real life, in online life, the golden rule still applies—treat others as you want to be treated. If you’re looking for a few tips anyway, here they are.


Facebook Do’s
Do be tolerant of others, particularly when you get friend requests from people you don’t immediately recognize or know. They may be looking for someone with the same name. If you don’t want to respond, just ignore the request.

Do set your privacy settings to the levels in which you feel comfortable and safe. By default, many of the privacy settings are set for everyone to see your profile information and other postings. It’s a good idea to adjust these settings to include just your friends.

Do report threatening behavior or inappropriate postings. Facebook takes this sort of thing very seriously. You can visit the Help page to find a report feature.

Do be considerate of other people’s feelings. Communicating electronically is often a challenge because people can’t see your face or hear the tone of your voice. Remember this when posting on Walls and making comments.

Do reply to Wall comments and personal messages when applicable. It’s mannerly to at least acknowledge people who attempt to communicate with you.

Do keep your Wall postings civil and free of foul or questionable language. Remember, that person’s other friends see your comments, including the possibility of that person’s mother.

Do choose an appropriate profile picture. Tacky or questionable pictures are not the way to go unless that’s really the message you want to convey to friends, family, coworkers, or your boss.

Do use your head about what information you share on Facebook and how you conduct yourself. When it comes to the issue of saying too much online, let discretion be your first instinct. It’s always better to say too little than too much.


Facebook Don’ts
Don’t think of your friends list as a competition to see who has the most. It’s not. Quality over quantity is the best approach. If you’re sending friend requests right and left to people you don’t intend to know, you’re in this for the wrong reasons.

Don’t give out your personal information unless you really know the person, and rely on private email messages, not the public forum that is the Facebook Wall. Always be cautious about sharing personal or confidential information—never give out your information to someone you don’t know.

Don’t irritate people with your postings. Keep in mind that not everyone wants to hear about your pet rabbit every single hour of every single day.

Don’t annoy people with too many “pokes” or other application actions. It’s fun the first time, but over and over again all day is too much.

Don’t use Facebook as a tool for revenge, bullying, or threats. Such activities will get you kicked off faster than a speeding bullet.

Don’t feel obligated to befriend everyone on Facebook. If you don’t want a particular person snooping around your profile, you can deny their friend request.

Don’t share company information online—that’s a big no-no.

Don’t make your romantic break-ups and get-togethers public knowledge. Save that sort of information for private forums.

Don’t lower your guard just because you’re with “friends” on Facebook. Accounts can be hijacked, and shared links can take you to questionable places or encourage you to download files that turn out to be viruses or malware.

Source of Information : Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 Minutes (2009)

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Facebook operates under the guidance of a set of values, goals, and rules for how the site works and how the users interact. These guidelines are important for the general well-being of its members, as well as the smooth and seamless function of the site. When you sign up for Facebook, you’re agreeing to uphold and follow their terms of service. If you’re like most people, however, you didn’t take time to read all the legalese and fine print. In a nutshell, the terms of service are broken down into several categories, such as privacy, information sharing, safety, account security, and topics along those lines.

You can read the terms yourself by scrolling to the bottom of any Facebook page and clicking the Terms link. The link always sits at the bottom of a page, along with links to Facebook’s Help page and privacy principles. When you click the Terms link, Facebook opens a page detailing a statement of rights and responsibilities.

You can certainly take time to read all the fine print, but if you just want a quick overview, here are a few details about the terms that you need to follow:

Privacy. Facebook promises to do their best to keep your information private or at least disclose to you if they share it with others. It’s up to you to control your own privacy settings, however.

Sharing Content and Information. You’re the owner of the content and information you post on Facebook; however, by posting it, you’re giving Facebook permission to use any content covered by intellectual property rights, kind of a license to use the content until you cancel your account.

Keep in mind that if you delete content or even your entire Facebook account, much of that content still resides somewhere on the servers. For this reason, do not post content that you do not want others to access or control.

Safety. Under this broad category, you cannot collect information from other users, send spam, upload viruses, solicit login information from others, bully other users, or use Facebook for illegal purposes. In other words, behave yourself.

Content. You cannot post content that is hateful or threatening to others. You cannot post pornographic material, or nudity of any kind. You’re also not allowed to post anything featuring gratuitous violence. This terms of service category is basically about using common sense and being a good citizen, conducting yourself in a way that would make your parents proud.

Account Security. You cannot supply Facebook with false or outdated information, and it’s up to you to keep your password safe and prevent unauthorized access. You cannot use Facebook if you’re under 13 years of age. You cannot use Facebook if you’re in a country that is currently under embargo. If you’re a convicted sex offender, you’re not allowed on Facebook.

So what happens if you violate the terms of service? Facebook has the right to terminate your account for any misdeeds, misconduct, illegal activities, and so forth. They can remove questionable content you post if it violates the terms of service. Basically, you’ll get in trouble if you don’t play nicely with others. Most of us learned this concept early on; however, there’s always someone out there looking for trouble. If you encounter such a person, you can report them on Facebook.

If you’re interested in reading more about Facebook’s privacy policies, such as exactly what information is collected from you and shared, click the Privacy link at the bottom of any Facebook page. You can also get to the page by clicking the Privacy Policy link found amidst the terms of service information.

Like many large-scale websites, Facebook’s terms and privacy policies change over time. You can always revisit the terms of service and principles pages to read up about the most current rules and regulations.

Source of Information : Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 Minutes (2009) (ATTiCA)

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If you like organization, you’ll love Facebook’s friend lists. You can group your friends into lists, which is particularly useful if you have hundreds of them on Facebook. For example, you may have a list for family and another for close friends, and still another list filled with casual acquaintances. Lists can help you keep track of different groups at different times, or send out messages to everyone in a group all at once.

If you’re like most people, you probably talk about some subjects with everybody and other subjects with only those who are close to you. For example, you may freely express your political or religious views, but not everyone on your friends list or network may want to share in those views. So you end up having private conversations with some, and more public conversations with others. You can make sure your separate worlds don’t collide on Facebook using friend lists as a tool for communicating and organizing.

To create a friend list, follow these steps:
1. Navigate to the Friends page and click All Friends.

2. Click the Create List button at the top of the lists area.

3. In the Create New List box, type a name for the new list and press Enter or Return.

4. You can scroll through and click on people you want to add to the new list, or you can type their names in the field at the top of the box.

5. When you finish adding friends to the list, click the Create List button.

After you create a new list, Facebook saves it and displays the Home page showing only the status updates and news feed of the people on the list you just made. To return to the normal news feed again that shows all your friends, just click the News Feed link on the upper-left side of the Home page. Anytime you want to view the news feed with just the friends from the list you created, just click its name on the Home page. You can also click the list name from your Friends page.

You can easily add names to a list, or remove names. The list is just for you; no one else can see your lists. To edit your list, return to the Friends page and click the list. Click the Edit List button and make your changes. When you finish, click the Save List button. To remove a list entirely, display the list and click the Delete List button; then click Delete List from the box that appears. You can use Facebook’s emailing features to email everyone on a list all at once.


Un-Friending Friends
As your friends list grows, you may encounter an occasion in which you want to “un-friend” someone. For example, if the person turns out to be a notorious spammer or you have a falling out of some kind, you can remove the person from your list, or perhaps you want to pare down your list to just people you actually know in some way. There’s no official declaration of this action; however, if your friend goes looking for you in her friend list, your name won’t appear anymore.

To remove a friend, display his or her profile page and click the Remove from Friends link located near the bottom-left area of the page. You can also click the person’s name on your Friends page friends list and click the X button to the right of the person’s name. A prompt box appears. Click the Remove button to finalize the removal. There’s no undo button for a friend removal. If you do want to “re-friend” them again at a later time, you’ll have to beg them to be your friend again through a friend request.


Source of Information : Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 Minutes (2009)

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So what does a Facebook member do on the site? What exactly does the site have to offer? More importantly, what can I get out of the experience? Here’s a list of various activities and pursuits to get you started on the road to answers to those questions:

. Connect with people. Connect with friends, family, colleagues, and fellow students. Reconnect with old friends, acquaintances, and family members scattered about the globe. Make new friends who share your interests.

. Keep track of your friends’ activities, while they keep track of yours.

. Share messages, links, photo albums, and video clips.

. Blog with the Facebook Notes feature.

. Organize events and invite friends to parties, concerts, band performances, meetings, and gatherings of all kinds.

. Play games with friends.

. Send virtual gifts, birthday greetings, and other digital objects.

. Join in groups and networks to connect with people sharing similar interests.

. Become a fan of a celebrity, politician, band, television show, or business.

. Buy and sell stuff in the Facebook Marketplace.

. Share a resume, or find an employer or an employee.

. Collaborate on project info at work or school.

. Market yourself, your products, or your company.

This list is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s plenty more to do and see, and plenty of people to meet. So what are you waiting for? Log on and start socializing!

Source of Information : Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 Minutes (2009)

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Social networks have been around for awhile now, and most are focused on connecting friends and colleagues. Bulletin Board Services (BBS) and Usenet groups were examples of early forms of social networks. As the concept evolved, generalized communities, like Geocities and Tripod (back in the mid-1990s), brought people together through chat rooms and forums. Today, social networks are flourishing all over the Web, including the ever-popular MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Some social sites, like Classmates.com, specialize in connecting former schoolmates, whereas other social sites, such as SixDegrees.com, focus on indirect ties between people. Some sites specialize in niche groups, whereas others aim for more generalized populations of people. Internet business strategies are recognizing the opportunities inherent in social networks and are happy to cater to different groups of people and their networking needs.

So where does Facebook fit in? Facebook is quickly becoming a front runner in the social networking race. Originally called The Facebook, Facebook started out in 2004 as a network geared toward college students at Harvard University. Founded by a computer science major, Mark Zuckerberg, and his roommates, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, the project quickly gained popularity among students. With financing assistance from Eduardo Saverin, the site grew seemingly overnight.

The original idea was based on paper face books commonly used to acquaint students with the campus community, including staff, faculty, and incoming students. Initially, the website was only available to Harvard students, but rapidly expanded to other universities in the Boston, Massachusetts area. Eventually, the concept spread to other universities and high schools, and today, anyone with a valid email address can join the fray. Facebook swiftly became an Internet sensation, and in 2005, the facebook.com domain was purchased and the base of operations moved to California.

Although the site is free to join, it generates revenue through advertising, including banner ads. New features and updates are added regularly, and the Facebook folks are quick to heed the ideas, wants, and needs of its members. In 2007, the Facebook Platform was launched, allowing a framework for software developers to create applications for the site. Today, tens of thousands of applications are available for Facebook, with more added daily.

Source of Information : Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 Minutes (2009)

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Facebook is a social networking website. To flesh out this definition a bit more, it’s an online community—a place where people can meet and interact; swap photos, videos, and other information; and generally connect with friends, family, coworkers, fellow students, fellow hobbyists and enthusiasts, and numerous others in their social network. Facebook connects people within cities or regions, work or school, home or abroad, and so on. Built on an architecture of profile pages that allow individual users to share information about themselves and communicate with others, Facebook seeks to create an environment in which members log in regularly to keep track of what friends and colleagues are doing, share their own activities, interact about interests and hobbies, send messages, and join groups and networks—just to name a few things.

Facebook is fast becoming the most popular social networking site on the Internet, quickly surpassing the previous leader, MySpace, in the number of registered users. Offering free access and dozens of tools for connecting people in social, school, and workplace environments, Facebook has over 200 million active users and is growing, with 100 million logging in daily to use the site. Over 30 million users access Facebook through mobile devices. Perhaps you’re wondering at this point why so many people are flocking to Facebook? That’s easy—it’s incredibly simple to use.

What started out as a college-based social network site, two-thirds of Facebook’s members are now outside of the college startup base and include users of all ages and walks of life. In other words, Facebook isn’t just for college kids anymore. One of the fastest-growing segments of users is the 35–54-year-old crowd.

Facebook is also a global phenomenon. Over 40 translations of the site are up and running, with more in development. 70% of users are outside the U.S., but those numbers are changing as Facebook rapidly catches on in the states.

At its heart, Facebook is all about connecting people with people. Facebook users do a variety of things with the site: track news about friends far and wide; make new friends centered around common interests; share photos, music, links, and videos; organize and invite people to events; play games; spread the word about charities and causes; buy and sell stuff; market products; and much, much more.

As a website, Facebook is accessible to all Internet users, where permitted. In addition to connecting people, third-party developers are creating a wide variety of applications—programs that run within the Facebook framework—to entertain and inform. Applications range from the silly to the serious, and new ones are added each day. What makes Facebook such a huge hit is its features and tools, and the willingness of its users to network with each other in their communities locally and globally.

Source of Information : Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 Minutes (2009)

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