by Philip Rha on Monday, January 10, 2011 at 12:03pm
Last month, we introduced the new profile, which now makes it even easier for you to tell your story and learn about your friends. For the month of December, we gave people the option to upgrade to the new profile early, and hundreds of millions of you made the switch. Starting today, we'll be rolling out the new profile to everyone.
The new profile features:
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A quick summary of who you are (like where you live, work and grew up), right at the top of your profile
A row of recently tagged photos so friends can see what you've been up to lately
Room to highlight meaningful friendships (like teammates, co-workers or roommates)
More of your favorite activities and interests
The ability to tag your friends in important life experiences
You can also learn about these new features by taking the quick tour available at the top of your new profile.
by Jon Fougner on Monday, January 31, 2011 at 9:58am
UPDATE on Monday, January 31, 2011: Deals is now also available in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. Look for yellow or green tickets when you check in to places in those countries. We also launched a new Deals page at http://www.facebook.com/deals, where you can learn more and find deals being offered near you.
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Originally published on Wednesday, November 2, 2010:
Everyone likes getting a good deal, but it's not always easy to find the right one at the moment you could use one. Imagine that while you're looking for a new place to try for lunch, you could see offers from restaurants nearby on your phone. On the other hand, I already love Zachary's Pizza, so imagine if I were rewarded for coming back there every week with my friends.
Starting today, local businesses will be able to offer you deals when you check in to their place on Facebook. Deals will be rolling out over the next few days and will only be available in the United States at this time.
We launched Places to let you share where you are with your friends and see who's nearby. Now with Deals, you also can see what offers are nearby and share those deals with your friends.
Finding deals near you is easy. On touch.facebook.com or the latest version of Facebook for iPhone, touch "Places" and then touch "Check In." Nearby Places with deals have a yellow icon:
When you touch the Place, you can view the deal and check in to claim it:
Then, just show your phone to the cashier to get your gift or discount:
These deals come from merchants, not Facebook, so check with your local stores for additional details, such as when they're running, how many of the offers are available, and whether a deal is just for you or also for your friends.
You'll see a few different types of Deals: individual deals for a discount, free merchandise or other reward; friend deals where you and your friends claim an offer together; loyalty deals for being a frequent visitor to a place; and charity deals where businesses pledge to donate to a cause when you check in.
Many other businesses are already planning deals in the coming weeks for their U.S. Places, including the following:
24 Hour Fitness: Donating $1 to Kaboom to support children's health for everyone who checks in to its fitness clubs.
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema: Hosting a free screening for whichever of their movie theaters gets the most check-ins, as well as giving free souvenir Facebook Places pint glasses just for showing that you've claimed the deal.
American Eagle Outfitters: Offering 20 percent off.
Chipotle: Giving its Facebook guests two entrees for the price of one.
Gap: Giving blue jeans to the first 10,000 customers to claim their deal.
Golden State Warriors: Inviting those who check in to an exclusive event with a basketball player on the NBA team from Oakland, Calif.
Harrah's: Offering a complimentary nightclub admission, buffet or other gift to people who stop by any of its 10 Las Vegas resorts.
H&M: Offering 20 percent off.
JCPenney: Giving $10 off any $50 purchase.
Lululemon: Sharing the gift of yoga by giving guests a pass to a local yoga studio.
Macy's: Offering 20 percent off select merchandise.
McDonald's: Giving $1 per customer to the Ronald McDonald House Charities.
North Face: Donating $1 to the National Park Foundation for every person who checks in at a North Face store or National Park.
The Palms: Upgrading your room or extending your weekend at the hotel another night--on the house.
REI: Donating $1 to a local conservation non-profit when you visit its stores.
San Francisco 49ers: Giving to the first 200 fans who check in the opportunity to buy tickets to a subsequent football game for just (you guessed it) $49.
Starbucks: Donating $1 per guest to Conservation International.
TAO and LAVO: Adding you and a friend to an upcoming guest list at one of the nightclubs for checking in.
Texas Tech: Giving away 100 pairs of tickets.
University of California at Berkeley: Letting football fans who check in form the human tunnel through which the players run.
University of Nebraska: Inviting attendees to a meet-and-greet with a Husker living legend.
If you are a local business that wants to offer deals, you can learn how to get started here.
We hope that these and other deals will help you and your friends find special offers as you check in at your favorite locations. In the coming months, we plan to make Places and Deals available in other countries as well.
Jon Fougner, a principal on Facebook's product marketing team, is looking forward to leaving Point Reyes National Seashore slightly better off next time he camps (and checks in) there.
by Alex Rice on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 6:13am
This Friday is Data Privacy Day, an international effort by governments, businesses and advocacy groups to raise awareness about the importance of staying in control of personal information. A key part of controlling information has always been protecting it from security threats like viruses, malware and hackers.
That's why we've developed a number of complex systems that operate behind the scenes to keep you secure on Facebook. In addition, we've created some advanced features you can use to help protect yourself even more, such as remote... logout and one-time passwords. These features are especially useful when you're uncertain whether your network or computer is secure. Today, we're announcing two new such features.
A Secured Connection
If you've ever done your shopping or banking online, you may have noticed a small "lock" icon appear in your address bar, or that the address bar has turned green. This indicates that your browser is using a secure connection ("HTTPS") to communicate with the website and ensure that the information you send remains private. Facebook currently uses HTTPS whenever your password is sent to us, but today we're expanding its usage in order to help keep your data even more secure.
Starting today we'll provide you with the ability to experience Facebook entirely over HTTPS. You should consider enabling this option if you frequently use Facebook from public Internet access points found at coffee shops, airports, libraries or schools. The option will exist as part of our advanced security features, which you can find in the "Account Security" section of the Account Settings page.
There are a few things you should keep in mind before deciding to enable HTTPS. Encrypted pages take longer to load, so you may notice that Facebook is slower using HTTPS. In addition, some Facebook features, including many third-party applications, are not currently supported in HTTPS. We'll be working hard to resolve these remaining issues. We are rolling this out slowly over the next few weeks, but you will be able to turn this feature on in your Account Settings soon. We hope to offer HTTPS as a default whenever you are using Facebook sometime in the future.
Social Authentication
At Facebook we strive to put people at the center of all of our products and to design every experience you have on the site to be social. This is obvious in products like photos, where pictures are organized around the people that appear in them. We also want to bring the benefits of social design to experiences where you wouldn't traditionally expect them, like account security. Social authentication is our latest effort toward this goal.
The vast majority of people who have used Facebook have never experienced a security problem. However, if we detect suspicious activity on your account, like if you logged in from California in the morning and then from Australia a few hours later, we may ask you to verify your identity so we can be sure your account hasn't been compromised.
Many sites around the web use a type of challenge-response test called a captcha in their registration or purchasing flows. The purpose of this test is to verify that you are a human being and not a computer trying to game the system. Traditional captchas have a number of limitations including being (at times) incredibly hard to decipher and, since they are only meant to defend against attacks by computers, vulnerable to human hackers.
Traditional captcha
Instead of showing you a traditional captcha on Facebook, one of the ways we may help verify your identity is through social authentication. We will show you a few pictures of your friends and ask you to name the person in those photos. Hackers halfway across the world might know your password, but they don't know who your friends are.
Social authentication
We will continue to test social authentication and gather feedback from you and the security community on how to make this and other social features safe and useful.
To learn more about how to keep your information safe on Facebook and across the internet, please visit the Facebook Security Page.
Alex Rice, a security engineer, is enjoying Facebook from a coffee shop.
by Mark Heynen on Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 2:00pm
We want people to have a great mobile experience no matter what type of phone they carry. Smartphones have offered better features for sharing with friends but aren't used by most people around the world.
Today, we're launching a new mobile app to bring Facebook to the most popular mobile phones around the world. The Facebook for Feature Phones app works on more than 2,500 devices from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG and other manufacturers, and it was built in close cooperation with Snaptu. The app provides a better Facebook experience for... our most popular features, including an easier-to-navigate home screen, contact synchronization, and fast scrolling of photos and friend updates.
We also wanted to make it available to as many people as possible. Similar to the 0.facebook.com site, we've worked with mobile operators from around the world to let you try this without paying for any data charges. The 14 mobile operators listed below are offering free data access when using the new Facebook mobile app during the first 90 days after they launch.
During the next few months, we plan to make the app available through more carriers in other countries so you can have a great mobile Facebook experience no matter what device you use.
