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- Exploring Local Businesses on Facebook
  by Jon Fougner on Friday, February 26, 2010 at 11:02am
  The following is part of our series on different ways you can use Facebook to connect with public figures, businesses and organizations around the world.
  
  Whether you're in your hometown or on a holiday in a favorite vacation spot, it's easy to stay updated on all of your favorite local businesses on Facebook. From restaurants and clothing boutiques to cinemas and nightclubs, my friends and I are regularly connecting to the Facebook Pages of local businesses to find out about deals, learn about new offerings and share feedback.
  
  ...
  Close to Home
  
  Before heading out to shop, you can check the Pages of your neighborhood stores for updates on sales and special events. During the holidays, my friend Morin saw IBISS Boutique of Santa Clara, Calif., post the hours of their pre-Christmas sale. She headed over and finished her gift shopping—at 60 percent off.
  
  On lazy Sunday nights, I like to grab a pizza. One of my favorites is Zachary's Chicago Pizza in Oakland, Calif. By posting awards and accolades to its Facebook Page, Zachary's reminds fans like me that it has some of the best pizza in the Bay Area and entices me to order.
  
  Local Experts on the Road
  
  Facebook Pages are also useful when you're hitting the road. Before going somewhere, it's easy to check the Pages of your friends who live in the city where you're visiting. From their profiles, you can view the Pages they're a fan of under the "Info" tab.
  
  For instance, a trip to Austin, Texas, isn't complete for me without a stop at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, which shares information about their "quote-along" screenings with fans and surveys them about what they'd like to watch. I learned about the theater when my friend Meagan shared their Page with me on Facebook.
  
  As an avid skier, I spend every winter tracking snow conditions at my favorite resorts like Squaw Valley in Lake Tahoe, Calif., before heading to the slopes. Squaw Valley uses Facebook for iPhone to share weather forecasts, terrain updates and even discount codes. By subscribing via SMS, I receive their latest news on my mobile phone. Even the comments from other Facebook fans help add more detail about what to expect from the snow.
  
  If I can't bring my dog with me to Tahoe, she can still have some cuddly company at Shamrock Ranch Kennels in Pacifica, Calif.--as you can see from the kennel's Facebook photos.
  
  Summer travel might mean a trip to Las Vegas, where I can see nightspot Tao reminding revelers like me that they can simply text "fan tao" to 32665 in order to connect with its Facebook Page. For any local business you love that has a Facebook username such as "www.facebook.com/[mybusiness]", you can text "fan [mybusiness]" to 32665 (FBOOK) to become a fan of that business' Page.
  
  Look for your local favorites on Facebook and become their fan to stay updated with them. If you own a local business, it's free and easy to create a Page for it. You can learn about more ways to use Facebook Pages by becoming a fan of Facebook Pages for more updates.
  
  Jon, a Facebook product marketing associate for ads, is checking upcoming shows at the Rooster T Feathers Comedy Club.
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- Topics: Business, Pages
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- Facebook Tips: What’s the Difference between a Facebook Page and Group?
  by Nick Pineda on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 1:40pm
  The following is part of our series, Facebook Tips, which answers some of the most commonly asked questions about using Facebook. While we hope the tips we share will be informative, we are unable to answer individual questions on this blog. Visit the Help Center for additional information about any topics we cover.
  
  Making connections on Facebook is not limited to friends. Through both Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups, you can stay more connected with everything that matters in your life—from businesses and public figures to common interests... and hobbies.
  
  To forge these ties on Facebook, it's important to understand the difference between Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups.
  
  Facebook Pages
  
  Like a friend's profile, Facebook Pages enable public figures, businesses, organizations and other entities to create an authentic and public presence on Facebook. Unlike your profile, Facebook Pages are visible to everyone on the internet by default. You, and every person on Facebook, can connect with these Pages by becoming a fan and then receive their updates in your News Feed and interact with them.
  
  Authenticity is at the core of Facebook. Just as profiles should represent real people and real names, so too should Pages for entities. Only the official representatives of a public figure, business or organization should create a Facebook Page.
  
  For example, I am an avid watcher of the American TV show "Lost" on ABC. By connecting with the official Facebook Page for "Lost", I can keep up on the latest episodes and other information directly from the people behind it.
  The official "Lost" Facebook Page.
  
  We have a team at Facebook that is focused on verifying the authenticity of Pages on the site. If an official representative or user identifies a fake, spammy or abusive Page, we will investigate and determine whether to remove these Pages at their request. Remember that you can always remove yourself as a fan of any Page by clicking the "Remove Me from Fans" link in the bottom left corner of the Page.
  
  Facebook Groups
  
  While Pages were designed to be the official profiles for entities, such as celebrities, brands or businesses, Facebook Groups are the place for small group communication and for people to share their common interests and express their opinion. Groups allow people to come together around a common cause, issue or activity to organize, express objectives, discuss issues, post photos and share related content.
  
  When you create a group, you can decide whether to make it publicly available for anyone to join, require administrator approval for members to join or keep it private and by invitation only. Like with Pages, new posts by a group are included in the News Feeds of its members and members can interact and share with one another from the group.
  
  Groups range widely, from members of a church group or athletic team organizing activities to serious topics on politics and world events or even more lighthearted themes.
  
  Say that you and your friends have a favorite celebrity or cause you want to rally around, but you are not the official representative of either. You can either become a fan of the official Facebook page for the celebrity or cause and show your support there or create your own group on Facebook around the common interest.
  
  For example, just as I'm a fan of the official Page for the show "Lost," I am also a member of groups created by other fans like myself. The "Lost" groups offer a way to interact with a community of people and discuss the latest theories around what is happening on the show—from what the "smoke monster is" to how it will all end.
  A "Lost" Facebook Group created by a fan.
  
  Together, Pages and Groups bring even more ways for you to stay connected on Facebook. You can help us by reporting any fake Pages you come across or abusive Groups you come across. Simply click the "Report" links located in the bottom left corner.
  
  Nick, an associate in Facebook user operations, is excited to see how "Lost" will end.
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- Topics: Groups, Pages, Facebook Tips
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- On the Road with Facebook Friends
  by Sara Lannin on Friday, February 19, 2010 at 8:43am
  The following is part of our "Your Stories" series on different ways Facebook is used across the world. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please submit it here.
  
  Many people dream of dropping everything and setting out on the open road, but few actually make this dream a reality. Looking for a fresh start, Lindol French of Menlo Park, Calif., left his job and apartment before setting off on what would become a 36-state, 22,000-mile, 138-day road trip across the United States.
  
  ...Along the way, he discovered that Facebook became both his journal for sharing his adventures as well as his guidebook for discovering the best places to visit.
  
  Aside from occasionally meeting friends for events such as Chicago's Lollapalooza festival or an Ole Miss football game, Lindol traveled alone. Yet, using Facebook, he always felt in touch with his close friends and family as well as the acquaintances he made during his journey.
  
  Inevitably, the majority of Lindol's Facebook posts during his trip centered on his whereabouts and the unique experiences he'd accumulated. Through these updates Lindol's friends and family, especially his father in South Africa, were able to keep up with his progress, view pictures of his adventures and read his thoughts on the places he traveled.
  
  The friends Lindol was making on the road were also interested in following his trail, so he began handing out old business cards and inviting people to find him on Facebook. He went through his cards so quickly that he soon had to make new ones specifically for this purpose.
  
  Early in his voyage, Lindol realized that his friends made Facebook as valuable a travel guide as it was a tool for documentation.
  
  "I had a wealth of knowledge at my fingertips, and their knowledge of the country proved invaluable," Lindol said of his Facebook friends. "I relied on Facebook more than I did my guidebooks, maps--more than anything except for the local knowledge of the people I met along the way."
  
  Lindol with a local blues legend in Clarksdale, Miss.
  
  For example, after posting that he was in Mississippi, Lindol received a tip from his best friend's sister that he must stop in Clarksdale for a pulled-pork sandwich at Abe's BBQ. He enjoyed the historic blues town, not to mention the sandwich, so much that he extended his stay long enough to befriend many of the locals, attend a true blues performance and watch the sun set from the porch of an old plantation.
  
  "It was one of the best nights of my entire trip," said Lindol, "and it was a place I'd never have found in a million years had it not been for Facebook."
  
  Now back in Menlo Park, Lindol is finishing his travel journal, with thoughts of turning it into a book or possibly a screenplay. However, even as he reflects upon his past adventure, he's also in the formative stages of planning the next one. His prediction: "Facebook will play an integral role, for sure."
  
  Sara, an intern on Facebook's communication team, feels inspired to to take a road trip.
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- Topics: Your Stories
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- New Privacy Controls for Your Applications
  by Ray C. He on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 1:22pm
  Facebook is designed to give you control over the information you share, and today we're making available some of our most recent privacy controls to applications on Facebook and websites and services using Facebook Connect.
  
  Last December, we launched a control that many of you had requested for some time—the ability to customize privacy for each piece of content you share on Facebook.com through the Publisher, including status updates, links, photos and videos. Today, we are responding to your continued feedback by extending that same level of... control to content shared through applications.
  
  There are now granular privacy options that enable you to personalize the audience for each piece of content you share through applications. Simply select the group of people you want to share with from the drop-down menu near the lock icon on the Publisher on your home page or profile, or the prompts that appear when you share from applications or Facebook Connect websites.
  
  For example, maybe you don't want all of your friends to see the humorous greeting card you just posted from an application. Now you can set that post to be viewable only by certain friends.
  
  Alternatively, there are some posts you may want to share with the broadest audience possible, such as information on an important organization you're supporting in the Causes application.
  
  These new controls give you the power to determine who sees the content you post to Facebook through any third-party application, whether it is on Facebook.com, your desktop, mobile phone, or from a Facebook Connect website or service. Seesmic, a desktop application from which you can view and update your News Feed, will soon offer extended privacy options so you can specify audiences for each update you make from the application, such as uploaded photos and status updates.
  
  Applications on Facebook.com and external websites and services using Facebook Connect implementations have always respected your privacy based on what you've set in the "Posts by Me" setting on your Privacy Settings page. This setting will continue to be your default setting for all posts, and you can change it at any time.
  
  You may also start to see additional prompts in applications asking if you'd like to set privacy for certain pieces of content that differ from your default setting. Whether you choose to keep your default setting on everything you share or change the audience for different pieces of content, the choice is yours.
  
  We look forward to continuing to provide tools that give you more control over your information. Please keep your comments and suggestions coming.
  
  Ray, an engineer on the Facebook Platform team, is sharing a Someecard that is not safe for mom.
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- Topics: Applications, Platform, Privacy
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- Sharing the Olympic Magic with Fans
  by Alex Huot on Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 10:27am
  The Vancouver 2010 Olympics open tomorrow for two weeks of international winter sports competition. On the eve of the opening ceremonies, we asked Alex Huot, head of social media for the International Olympic Committee, to discuss how the Olympics are not only bringing together athletes but also connecting fans through social media.
  
  My first exposure to the Olympics was in Montreal, Canada. It was 1976, and I was 8 years old. I remember watching the games with my father in the attic of our house that we had converted into a den.
  
  ...Buzz and excitement surrounded the Olympics in my parents' house. I didn't completely understand it then, but a few years later it all made sense.
  
  While following the Montreal Olympic Summer Games in 1976, I discovered that for the Athens-to-Ottawa stage of the torch relay the Olympic flame traveled by air--but not by plane. Instead, relay organizers placed in the flame a sensor used to detect ionized particles and turn them into coded impulses. Those impulses were transmitted by satellite to Ottawa, where they then activated a laser beam that duplicated the Olympic flame in Olympia, Greece.
  
  That's when the Olympics came to life for me.
  
  Technology has changed dramatically since 1976, but the magic of the Olympics has endured. When the Vancouver Winter Games open tomorrow, fans of the Olympics from every corner of the globe will be able to be part of the magic through social media.
  
  When I started managing social media for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) this year, I immediately saw the connection between the concept of a "fan" on Facebook and the long-standing fans of the Olympic Games. Just as the Olympic rings are universally recognized, so too is the concept of a "fan" of Olympic sports.
  
  The IOC launched the official Olympic Games Page on Facebook in January, and it since has grown to nearly one million fans. Through the page, you can stay updated on activities and events at the Games, while sharing your own stories about what the Olympics mean to you. You'll even be able to stay updated on future games even after this year's Winter Olympics end.
  
  Our fans on Facebook even helped to create an Olympic pin inspired by their passion. Inscribed with the Olympic rings and the phrase, "I am a fan," the pins are available only to these fans.
  The Olympic Games Page is just one of many ways people can connect with the games in Vancouver. Others include:
  Becoming a fan of athletes and Olympic teams: More than 200 athletes and Olympic teams are on Facebook, ranging from country and sport teams such as the Swiss Olympic Team and U.S. Figure Skating to Canadian bobsledder Justin Kripps and U.S. snowboarder Shaun White. They are sharing everything from personal photos to status updates about their preparations and their excitement upon arriving in Vancouver. Once you're a fan, you can post your own well wishes and questions directly to your favorite teams and athletes.
  
  Playing the Vancouver 2010 Official Minigame: This game, available on the web and as an application on Facebook, lets you compete virtually in such events as snowboard cross, giant slalom and ski jumping as you prepare to watch the real thing from Vancouver.
  
  Sharing photos: The IOC is inviting fans of the Games who will be in the Vancouver area during the Olympics to share their photos of the action through The Olympic Games Facebook Page. The IOC will then will pick the best photos, awarding the winners with free tickets to events and sharing the images on olympic.org and vancouver2010.com.
  
  It is clear that without fans the Olympic Games would not be the same. By bringing together the more than 2,000 athletes and millions of spectators in Vancouver with 400 million people on Facebook, we think the 2010 Winter Games could be the most magical yet.
  
  Alex thinks that without fans the Olympic Games would be a lonely place.
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- Topics: Guest blog, Pages, Sports
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- Romantic Tales from the News Feed
  by Sara Lannin on Friday, February 12, 2010 at 10:40am
  As part of our "Your Stories" series on different ways Facebook is used around the world, we are featuring stories in celebration of Valentine's Day this Sunday from people who found love and nurtured romances on Facebook. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please submit it here.
  
  Love on the Wall
  
  After an unexpected divorce, Jenece Whitted was discouraged by the prospect of finding love again. She decided in February 2009 to post a status update on Facebook voicing her frustration with the "game" of dating, and she was surprised... when an old friend from elementary school, Adam, commented in agreement. The two began chatting on Facebook, discussing Adam's talent as a comics artist and which strips he thought were appropriate for Jenece's 7-year-old son.
  The finale from Adam's comic.
  Chatting soon led to texting, which led to talking on the phone, and before a week had passed Adam had booked a flight from California to Arizona to visit. It was love at first sight for Jenece, as well as her two sons, who were thrilled with Adam's knowledge of Star Wars and Super-Heroes. Adam moved to Arizona at the end of May, and in September he found a unique way to pop the question.
  
  "I woke up in the morning and checked Facebook like I always do," said Jenece, who noticed a new picture on Adam's Wall. "I clicked on it, thinking he had just drawn another comic."
  
  This was no ordinary picture, though; it was Adam's proposal.
  
  "I read it and when I turned to look at him he had the ring out…it was so sweet," recalls Jenece. "He is definitely one in a million!"
  
  The two are planning a June 2010 wedding.
  
  High School Reunion
  
  After his wife of 33 years passed away in January 2009, Mike Sullivan joined Facebook hoping to reconnect with old running buddies and friends who could help him overcome his grief. Little did he know that he would find more than friendship.
  
  After recognizing a woman he went to high school with, named Terri, Mike began exchanging messages with her on Facebook about old memories and their lives since high school. Terri, who had been divorced for four years, lived in a town only about three hours from Mike, and one day they agreed to meet halfway in Ranger, Texas.
  Terri and Mike
  "We sat in my truck for about five hours talking about old times, looking at the high school annuals she brought," Mike said. "When we decided it was time for us to go, I kissed her and knew there was a very special connection between us. I smiled all the way back home."
  
  Today, Mike credits Terri with helping him cope from the loss of his wife, saying he would have had a much harder time without her there for support. It will be even easier for Mike to be by Terri's side in March, when he plans to move to her town and begin a new job. For this couple, there is a lot to look forward to this Valentine's Day.
  
  Fire Drill Romance
  
  On the evening of Nov. 6, 2008, Kate Lovett was in the middle of a theology exam at Brigham Young University. Suddenly, the fire alarms sounded, requiring her and the entire testing center to evacuate.
  
  Though the timing was less than ideal, Kate's misfortune was lessened when she met a handsome stranger during the drill—a fellow student whose transportation engineering exam also was interrupted. When everyone returned indoors, Kate parted ways with her new acquaintance.
  Kate and Alexander
  "I knew I wanted to get to know him better, but all I had was his first name, hometown and major," she said.
  
  To Kate's delight and surprise, she was able to find him on Facebook immediately after her exam ended. Although Kate checked out his profile, she didn't attempt to connect with him further until several months later. She finally sent him a Facebook message asking him to go to lunch the following day. Thankfully, he agreed, and the two began dating soon afterward.
  
  Kate is happy to say that because of Facebook, and a pesky fire alarm, she can now call that handsome engineering student her husband.
  
  Sara is an intern on Facebook's communications team.
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- Topics: Your Stories
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- Facebook Chat Now Available Everywhere
  by David Reiss on Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 11:35am
  We believe you should be able to connect with your Facebook friends everywhere. We're happy to announce that now you can with Facebook Chat. Starting today, the more than two billion chat messages sent on the site every day can be sent from your favorite desktop instant messaging client.
  
  By integrating Facebook Chat with your preferred instant messenger, you'll never miss a message when you have to navigate away from Facebook and you'll be in control of how and where you chat with your Facebook friends. Simply connect your Facebook account with... the instant messaging client of your choice and start chatting. You will not need to stay logged in to Facebook.com to continue to access your Facebook friends.
  
  If you don't want all of your online friends to appear, you can adjust which Friend Lists show up in chat by adjusting them on Facebook. To go offline, you can either close your instant messaging client or click "go offline" in your Facebook Chat options. As always, your conversations will remain completely private and only between you and your Facebook friends.
  Adjusting Friend Lists that appear in Chat.
  
  To make Facebook Chat available everywhere, we are using the technology Jabber (XMPP), an open messaging protocol supported by most instant messaging software, including iChat, Pidgin, Adium, Miranda and more.
  
  We've also built support for Facebook Chat into Facebook Connect for developers wishing to build chat experiences into their website, desktop or mobile instant-messaging applications and services. If you already have an AOL Instant Messenger account, you can check this out by connecting your Facebook Chat using the latest version of AIM.
  
  To get started chatting, please visit the Facebook Chat section of the site tour for instructions on how to connect and for examples of instant messaging clients you can connect with. We hope you enjoy chatting with your friends wherever you go.
  
  David, a Facebook engineer, is going to chat 24/7.
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- Topics: Chat
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- Facebook Mobile: 100 Million and Growing
  by Chamath Palihapitiya on Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 10:34am
  We want as many people as possible to be able to access Facebook all the time, regardless of where they live or what device they carry. Today, we hit another milestone toward that goal, with more than 100 million people actively using Facebook from their mobile devices every month. This usage happens on almost every carrier in the world and comes less than six months after we announced 65 million people on Facebook Mobile.
  
  Through this growth, we have continued to try to improve the experience of these mobile products. We work with every major... device manufacturer and many operators to ensure that we can provide the best possible mobile experience across the thousands of different devices, mobile operating systems and carriers you rely on.
  
  With every new feature or product we bring to mobile, our goal is to offer the same value and user experience that people know on Facebook. Here are some of the recent mobile products we've launched with that goal in mind:
  touch.facebook.com
  Mobile websites: Our mobile sites m.facebook.com and touch.facebook.com have been redesigned, enabling people to access Facebook from any mobile browser in more than 70 languages. With the explosion of smart phones, we want to make sure people have a great Facebook experience that scales with their device especially as people have begun to upgrade their devices more frequently.
  
  Text messages: More than 80 operators in 32 countries enable millions of people around the world to stay connected and communicate with their friends on Facebook using SMS text messages. Recently we also launched a URL-shortening service called FB.ME that makes it even easier for people to share content. With FB.ME, you can share and access more through services like SMS that limit the number of characters in messages.
  
  Applications: Facebook is already one of the most requested services on mobile, and we work with every major device maker and mobile operating system to bring applications and integrations to all platforms. We're always improving these applications and have recently released updates for our applications on Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia and Samsung. We also support a broad range of new Facebook experiences on devices from HTC, INQ, LG Electronics, Palm, Sony Ericsson and Microsoft's Windows Mobile.
  
  No matter which mobile device you own, you can always stay connected through Facebook using our mobile applications, sites or SMS. Find the right Facebook Mobile product for you at www.facebook.com/mobile.
  
  Chamath, Facebook's vice president of user growth, mobile and international, is getting ready for Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
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- Topics: Mobile
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- Parenting via Facebook: Vomit Reports and Baby Advice
  by Theresa Walsh Giarrusso on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 3:43pm
  We are republishing a story about parenthood and Facebook that originally appeared on Feb. 2 in the Momania blog from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Blogger Theresa Walsh Giarrusso lives in suburban Atlanta and is the mother of two girls and one boy.
  
  I have been anxiously anticipating a round of stomach virus to hit our house based on what my friends from our school and other schools in the metro area are reporting on Facebook.
  
  ...Much like the local weatherman, the status reports on Facebook tell parents what viruses are in the area and which ones of their friends' kids they should be currently avoiding.
  
  My neighbor told me this morning at the bus stop that her son had been throwing up all night. She's not on Facebook so she didn't know it's been all the buzz.
  
  I told her all my friends on Facebook have been reporting that their kids have it.
  
  How long does it last she asked? Does it have a fever?
  
  I told her no one had written anything about a fever, just that it lasts for days and was passing from child to child. Also told her to be careful with dehydration. One of our friends reported a hospital visit for IVs because her child had become so dehydrated.
  
  I posted yesterday that Theresa Walsh Giarrusso "is baby with strep."
  
  And friends chimed in that strep was going around their area too. (Walsh had it last week. So it's going around our house for sure.)
  
  Besides sharing symptoms and diagnosis on Facebook, parents offer each other lots of condolences and support. Lots of "hang in theres" and with the throw-up virus, lots of "that's disgusting" or "poor (fill-in name of parent here.)" It's like a large 3-way call with your buddies when you're covered in puke or diarrhea.
  
  Facebook isn't just useful for diagnosing illness and getting cyber-pats-on-the-back for dealing with them, it's also great for baby advice. I participated last week in a discussion with a high school friend and many of her current friends as she was contemplating Ferberizing her baby. The messages were heated as that topic always seems to ignite a fury.
  
  Another friend was trying to determine why her baby wasn't sleeping. Way too many friends advising to dope the baby with Benadryl as far as I'm concerned.
  
  Another high school friend was looking for dietary advice — what's a normal amount for a kid to eat. She was marveling at the tape worms in her kids' bellies. (All agreed must be growth spurts.)
  
  Another friend was just trying to figure out what to say to her child that called her the "maid" this week.
  
  Do you find Facebook useful in figuring out which illnesses will be coming to a home near you? Do you use it to get a cyber-pat-on-the-back when facing tough parenting times? Do you ever use it to help solve your parenting dilemmas? Do you weigh in with parenting advice for those who ask? (You know I do!)
  
  Theresa is still waiting for the vomiting virus to hit her house.
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- Topics: Guest blog, Parents
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- The Importance of Thinking Before You Post
  by Will Gardner on Monday, February 8, 2010 at 10:10pm
  Today is Safer Internet Day in the European Union, a day that promotes safe and responsible use of the Internet and mobile technologies among young people. We asked Childnet International, a member of Facebook's Safety Advisory Board, and its CEO Will Gardner to share more about this year's theme and how the organization is working with young people on Internet safety.
  
  When young people discuss the future of the Internet and new technologies, a central theme is keeping safe. Many see it as a right.
  
  ...At Childnet International, we saw this reaction firsthand as part of the recent Youth IGF Project we organized. The project was developed as a way for young people to have a voice at the Internet Governance Forum and to engage in a dialogue with Internet industry and lawmakers. As Thomas, age 12 and one of the participants, explained, "(We want) to have (the) freedom to go on what we want without being restricted, but (to) still be safe on the Internet."
  Safer Internet Day is an important event in the Internet safety calendar and provides a great opportunity to showcase some of the key messages about staying safe online. Held for the past four years on the second Tuesday of the second month, Safer Internet Day has grown beyond its origins in the EU and is now celebrated in countries across the world. The theme this year is "Think Before You Post," a vital message not only for children and young people but, let's be honest, adults as well.
  
  In this Web 2.0 world, where people have the ability to instantly communicate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it is more important than ever to think about your behaviour online to protect yourself and your friends, as well as for the good of the broader Internet community. While the message of "Think Before You Post" is relevant for all age groups, it is particularly important for those who frequently use social media services like Facebook. Information and images online have longevity and an incredible reach, which we need to factor into any decision to post content. We need to think about the possible implications and impact of our posts.
  
  Consider these questions, compiled by the organisers of Safety Internet Day, before your next posting, and if you're a parent, ask your children these questions to help them learn about responsible posting:
  Are you using the privacy settings offered by social networking services? On Facebook, you can always adjust them on the Privacy Settings page.
  
  Are you selecting friends online that you can trust? Remember it's not just about what you post, but how others may use that content.
  
  Are you carefully thinking about the potential consequences of publishing your photos before you upload them?
  
  Do you ask for permission from your friends before publishing photos of them? A photo that may be funny to you may cause harm for a friend.
  
  "Think Before You Post" is a positive message. It is about taking control of your online safety and participating in the benefits of social media, with respect for yourself and for others.
  
  Will is getting ready to re-launch Childnet's digizen website following Safer Internet Day to help young people think before they post.
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- Topics: Privacy, Safety, Guest blog
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- Faster, Simpler Photo Uploads
  by Chris Putnam on Friday, February 5, 2010 at 2:57pm
  Facebook is the largest photo-sharing site with over 2.5 billion photos uploaded to Facebook each month. In order to make sharing photos even easier, today we are announcing a new and improved photo uploader.
  
  Recently we've received feedback that people struggle with our current photo uploader due to various technical issues, while others are confused by the installation process. In this new version of the photo uploader, we have solved many of those problems and developed a fast, stable and simple experience for sharing photos on Facebook.
  
  The... new uploader will be rolling out gradually over the next several weeks. Once this upgrade has launched for you, the first time you go to upload a new photo you'll be asked to install the Facebook Plug-In. Simply click "Install" when you see the dialogue box in your web browser. Installation should take no longer than two minutes, and you will usually not have to restart your browser to continue.
  
  Once the installation is complete, you will see a simple photo browser appear in a dialogue box on your screen. The top half of the box allows you to browse and select the folders from your desktop that contain your photos. From the bottom half of the box, you can choose which photos you'd like to upload to your Facebook profile. Click the "Use Selected Photos" button when you're ready to upload.
  
  Once you have started your upload, you'll discover another feature, asynchronous uploading, that allows you to navigate away from the upload page, or even away from Facebook completely, while your photos continue to upload in the background. When the process is complete, you will receive a notification and can navigate back to edit, tag and add captions to your photos.
  
  The installation box for the photo uploader will appear anytime you do something on the site that requires it—for example, when you create a new photo album or add photos to an existing album. The new photo uploader will also support additional image formats.
  
  Our goal with this upgrade is to give you a fast, stable and simple experience for sharing photos on Facebook with your friends. If you have additional questions about the new photo uploader, please visit the Help Center or read this post on the Facebook Engineering Page to learn more about the technical details.
  
  Chris, a Facebook engineer, is uploading photos from last night's Hackathon.
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- Topics: Photos
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- Introducing Your New Navigation
  by Jing Chen on Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 6:46pm
  Over the past few months, we've been testing several different designs of the home page to improve navigation to and discovery of commonly used features. Today, we started rolling out the most recent navigation updates to help you find what you are looking for on Facebook. Now from the top and left menus you can quickly get to what's new and important.
  
  ...
  Stay Updated from the Top Menu
  
  In the top menu, you will find your newest notifications, requests and messages. For example, when you receive a Facebook notification about someone writing on your Wall or tagging you in a photo, you'll see a red bubble appear in the left-hand corner near the search bar. When you click on the icon, you'll see a drop-down menu with your most recent notifications.
  
  Notifications drop-down menu
  
  The Home and Profile links can now be found in the top-right corner along with your Account menu, which includes your privacy settings and the ability to log out.
  
  Discover Content from the Left Menu
  
  The left menu has been organized to make it easier for you to communicate with and discover content from your friends. You can now access your messages and other core features all in one place, to the left of your News Feed.
  
  With the Photos dashboard you can browse recent photos of your friends, and the Events dashboard lists your upcoming events along with events your friends are attending. The Friends dashboard will help you find friends, see which of your friends have recently updated their profiles and filter your News Feed by Friend Lists you may have already created.
  
  Photos dashboard
  
  We have also made Chat more prominent by showing you a list of some of your online friends in the left-hand menu. This list is not comprehensive, but includes people who you communicate with frequently. To see a list of all of your online friends, you can open the Chat bar in the bottom right-hand corner or click "See All" at the bottom of your left-hand menu.
  
  Interact with Games and Applications
  
  We're making it easier for you to find and interact with applications and discover new ones, with the new Applications and Games dashboards, accessible via the "Applications" and "Games" links on the home page. The dashboards will surface the applications you've interacted with most recently as well as your most recent application activity and your friends' activity.
  
  You will also start to see counters next to the applications you have bookmarked on your home page. Counters will notify you when you have a specific action to take, so that you never miss your turn in a game or an update from a friend in an application.
  
  You can bookmark your favorite applications using the "Add Bookmark" button in an application, and then you'll have one-click access to them from the left-hand menu beneath the Applications and Games dashboards. Click the "More" link to see all of your newest bookmarks.
  
  Games dashboard
  
  Another way to receive personalized updates from applications will be in the Applications and Games dashboards. News items will appear alongside applications in the dashboards with actions such as "Clean Stinky" in Pet Society or "Joe just beat your high score!" in Bejeweled Blitz.
  
  We think sharing information about the applications you use enriches the shared experience between you and your friends. At the same time, we feel strongly that control is an important element of any information sharing on Facebook. That's why these features are launching with an entirely new privacy setting.
  
  If you would rather not have your recent application activity visible in the dashboards to your friends, you can change this through your Privacy settings . We're also working on a more granular set of controls for specific applications, so that you can turn off activity for certain applications while leaving it on for others. We'll have more information to share on this soon.
  
  We hope the simplified design of the home page will make it easy for you to stay connected with the people, applications and activities that matter the most to you. To learn more about the new design, check out the site tour.
  
  Jing, a Facebook engineer, is moving fast around the site.
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- Topics: Games, Applications, Home Page, News Feed
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- Six Years of Making Connections
  by Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 5:41pm
  Today we're celebrating our sixth birthday, and this week there will be 400 million people on Facebook. Just one year ago we served less than half as many people, and thanks to you we've made great progress over the last year towards making the world more open and connected.
  
  Facebook began six years ago today as a product that my roommates and I built to help people around us connect easily, share information and understand one another better. We hoped Facebook would improve people's lives in important ways. So it's rewarding to see that as... Facebook has grown, people around the world are using the service to share information about events big and small and to stay connected to everyone they care about.
  
  For me personally, this has meant being able to remain close and connected to schoolmates, family and colleagues while working hard at building Facebook over the past six years. It has also been especially meaningful to me and to everyone at Facebook to see people using Facebook to seek help, share news and lend support during crises.
  
  Whether in times of tragedy or joy, people want to share and help one another. This human need is what inspires us to continue to innovate and build things that allow people to connect easily and share their lives with one another.
  
  So to celebrate six years of Facebook and the 400 million people on the service, we're doing what we like doing most—building and launching products for people. Tonight we'll host a celebration at Facebook headquarters, and we'll release a handful of new things that will improve people's Facebook experience, including a couple that people have requested a lot. We'll post more details to our blog in a few hours.
  
  After the launch we're going to celebrate with a Hackathon—an event where all of us stay up all night coding and building out our new ideas for our next wave of products for you.
  
  Thanks again for making Facebook a part of your life. Happy sixth birthday to Facebook and our whole community. We look forward to building more things and continuing to serve you for many more years to come.
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- Topics: Growth
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- Connecting with... Sam Gosling: Facebook Psychologist
  by Adam D. I. Kramer on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 12:56pm
  At Facebook, we're constantly connecting with interesting people—from experts in their field, academics and researchers to celebrities or visitors to our office. Occasionally, we'll share these conversations on the Facebook Blog in our "Connecting with...." series. I had the opportunity to speak with Sam Gosling, professor of psychology at The University of Texas at Austin and author of "Snoop: What your stuff says about you." He recently published research that found that people are expressing their real personalities on social networks like... Facebook, rather than inflated takes on themselves.
  
  Gosling
  What made you interested in researching the psychology behind people's profile on Facebook and social networking generally?
  I think it was a confluence of two different forces. First, I had already done a lot of research on how you can look at people's physical spaces as reflections of what people are like and how people use that physical space to communicate messages to others and make them feel certain ways. …It just seemed quite a natural extension to apply this approach to a virtual space…
  
  Second, so many people are on the social networking sites. And although from the outside their activities may appear frivolous, they clearly aren't because so many people devote so much time and psychological energy to them.
  
  So you found that people are in fact reflecting their real personalities in their Facebook profiles, is that correct?
  That's correct. We found that judgments of people based on nothing but their Facebook profiles correlate pretty strongly with our measure of what that person is really like, and that measure consists of both how the profile owner sees him or herself and how that profile owner's friends see the profile owner. The combination of those self and friend-based ratings corresponded pretty strongly with the judgments made by strangers.
  
  Why do you think people actually are being their true selves online, even though they could just present whoever they'd like to be seen as?
  Well, it's not clear that many of the people could just present how they would like to be seen. I think there are a number of obstacles to doing that. So, one of the obstacles is really knowing how to be different.
  
  I can see my colleague's office, which is immaculate, and I can see my office, which is messy. So if I went into her office, I could pull one of the journals a quarter of an inch from the bookshelf and she would notice that right away and push it back, whereas you could mess up my books, put them on their sides, take some out and put them in the wrong shelves and I wouldn't notice for a few months. It's very, very hard to fake those differences in perception...
  
  Another reason why it's hard to fake is that you'd have to consistently and persistently do things in order to be a seen certain way. So if I wanted to pretend to be much nicer than I really am, it's not just half an hour [of] really focusing on it. You've only got to slip up once or twice for you to completely negate that: You've only got to, you know, do something really mean to someone for that impression to go, for example.
  
  If I want to appear to be a sensation seeker [and] be seen as somebody who "swims with the sharks," then I actually have to go swimming with the sharks in order to have photos of me swimming with the sharks. I can't just create a picture of me scuba diving, I have to really do it... There is accountability there because if I claim to be someone who enjoys swimming with the sharks, my friends in the real world would say, "No you don't, you're totally scared of sharks."
  
  So the next question is a little more broad: How do you think that the Internet has changed our sense of identity overall?
  I think that's a very good question... Once cultures became industrialized that resulted in people segmenting their social audiences because they would leave home and go to work and then perhaps go to another venue, or audience, to engage in leisure activities. I think these developments allowed people to develop different identities: I will have a home or family self, a friend self, a leisure self, a work self. We were able to have all of these different selves and maintain those things quite separately. And it's quite common right now to have people from work who know nothing about your home life and vice versa.
  
  As these new technologies emerge, they are for the first time now bringing those identities together. On my Facebook profile, I have colleagues, I have family members, I have students, I have people who've read my book, I have all kinds of different people there and it's much harder now to maintain that separation. So I think one of the things we are being forced to do is accept the merging of identities that we may have tried to keep apart before. So as a professor, I may not want people to think that I go out and have a few drinks occasionally, but now I have to find a way to reconcile my professor self with my having-a-few-drinks self.
  
  Plus at the same time, if everybody sees that everybody is doing that, they might come to terms with it a little bit better so that they don't find it quite so scandalous?
  Absolutely. I certainly agree with you. I think that is happening. I think we're now accepting that just because you see your accountant going out on weekends and attending clown conventions, that no longer makes you think that he's not a good accountant. We're coming to terms and reconciling with that merging of identities.
  
  Would you say that sharing is basically the same when you're doing it on purpose? In social media, all of the sharing that people do is sort of intentional; it's on purpose, as opposed to in a more naturalistic context where you may happen to say something and then even regret it or forget that [you] shared that.
  Yes, I think you're right, and I think one of the other things that we're having to face up to is that in our normal social interactions, we may be deliberately sharing things but under the guise of letting them [out] accidentally—"Oh did I mention, I just go back from Monaco?" or something like that.
  
  And now, of course, because you deliberately do these things, I think sort of the norms of "letting things slip" and the other ways we might try to communicate deliberately [while] pretending they are not deliberate are changing too... When you first see these things [in social media] it looks very unusual in terms of people showing off about all the cool things they have done. Yet, they have always done that and they just kind of did it in a different way.
  
  So what's next? Are you planning any future research into people's Facebook personalities?
  We are trying to look in a bit more detail right now in terms of which elements people use when they are forming impressions of others. Which ones should they use, which ones have they been neglecting that they shouldn't? Which ones are they wrongly using [and] which ones actually are diagnostic of what people are like? Also [we're] trying to look at how information changes and how preferences may be communicated amongst people.
  
  So, for example, with people becoming friends—looking at what we can learn about friendship, say, with the sharing of preference information. If you and I become friends and then you suddenly "like" all the music that I have "liked," what does that say about our friendship? Or, if we share more equally, what does that say about our friendship? Or if we never share. So [we are] beginning to look at Facebook interactions as indexes of these social processes.
  
  Adam is a Ph.D. student in social psychology at the University of Oregon and an intern on Facebook's data team.
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- Topics: Connecting with..., Research
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