The Facebook Blog

Over the past five years, Facebook has evolved to make sharing information more efficient and to give people more control. This year, we are going to continue making the flow of information even faster and more customized to those you want to connect and communicate with, no matter how broadly or privately. To give you a framework for how we're thinking about these upcoming changes, it's important to understand how Facebook has developed and where we're heading.

The Social Graph and The Stream

When we started Facebook in 2004, it was just a basic... directory with some names, interests, contact information and a profile picture. If you wanted to find out about a friend's updates, you had to check your friend list for updated profiles and visit each friend's profile to see what had changed. This worked because people didn't change their profiles too often. Over time we added photos, videos, groups and events, and people started sharing more and more information. So in 2006, we launched News Feed, which highlighted for you the most interesting updates from your friends on your home page. It helped you understand everything that was going on.

As more and more information flows through Facebook, the need for people to easily discover the most recent and relevant content has grown. That's why when we redesigned the profile last year, we focused on the Wall—the stream of information telling you what is going on with a person—rather than the previous profile style of boxes containing unchanging information. This was a big step in our evolution because it moved Facebook in the direction of helping people share immediate experiences with one another: a thought, a status, a photo, a note, a feeling.

In 2007, we popularized the term Social Graph to describe how Facebook maps out people's connections. The idea is that these connections—whether friendships, affiliations or interests—exist already in the real world, and all we're trying to do is map them out. We believe that connecting people to their friends is just the beginning, and we're working hard on making Facebook a place for people to connect with and keep track of all the interests in their lives.

We think that as it becomes easier to connect and share across the social graph, people—as well as companies, governments and other organizations—will share more information about what is happening with them. As this happens, the world will become more open and people will have a better understanding of everything that is going on around them.

One way to think about this is as a timeline—or a stream. As people share more, the timeline gets filled in more and more with what is happening with everything you're connected to. The pace of updates accelerates. This creates a continuous stream of information that delivers a deeper understanding for everyone participating in it. As this happens, people will no longer come to Facebook to consume a particular piece or type of content, but to consume and participate in the stream itself.

In order to make this a reality, we must build Facebook to give everyone the power to share anything they want and connect with anyone they want. The way we're doing that is to first extend people's ability to connect with everything that interests them, and to give people a way to get updates from all of these connections. Then, we're going to increase the pace of the stream, so you can immediately see what is going on around you.

What's New Today

Starting today, we are announcing new profiles for public figures and organizations. Once called Pages, these new profiles will now begin looking and functioning just like user profiles. Just as you connect with friends on Facebook, you can now connect and communicate with celebrities, musicians, politicians and organizations. These folks will now be able to share status updates, videos, photos or anything else they want, in the same way your friends can already. You'll be able to keep up with all of their activity in your News Feed. This means that you can find out that Oprah is reading a book backstage before a show, CNN posted a breaking story or U2 is working on a new song, just as you would see that your friend uploaded new photos from her trip to Europe.

We're also going to make some changes to the home page. The new home page will let you see everything that's shared by your friends and connections as it happens. It will also provide you more control by letting you choose exactly who you see among the people and things you are connected to. You can decide you no longer want to get updates from your old friend from high school who you rarely talk to, or you can filter the stream to only see updates about your family members. And now, if you want, you can read what President Obama is saying on the same page as your best friend. You can find out what it is your mother, your high school classmate or President Obama are doing, thinking and sharing right now just by logging into Facebook.

We'll begin rolling out the new home page next week, so please check out our home page tour to see the new design and let us know what you think about it. This is an exciting move for us and we have more coming, so keep an eye on the blog for more updates about upcoming products.

Today, Facebook is making it easier for you to connect with your favorite public figures and organizations. You'll have access to all their status updates, photos, videos and much more. You can also comment on their posted content and join the conversations just as you would with friends or family members on their Facebook profiles. You'll be able to do this—not just with your favorite celebrities—but also with political leaders, media outlets, non-profit organizations, TV shows, musicians and much more. Now, you can receive and share... information with all the people and things you are connected to in your life. This means you can stay updated on policies and initiatives from French President Nicolas Sarkozy or receive campus updates from Stanford University. You can even root for Lance Armstrong as he trains for his next big race.

Here are some specific examples to give you a better idea of how this will work. You can connect with the band U2—a favorite for many people around the world—and learn more about them through their public profile, just as you might with a friend's profile. You can now access personal videos they recorded during their travels around the world, photos of their latest concert and even receive reminders for their upcoming events. And you can interact with U2 by commenting directly on their updates.



You may already hear about what's happening around the world through friends' updates on Facebook. Now, major media outlets like The New York Times can use their public profile to share breaking developments that will stream directly into your News Feed, so you don't have to worry about missing an important story. For a more colorful look into current events, check out The New York Times' photos and videos and be sure to share your comments.



To contribute to your community, you can connect with organizations like the American Red Cross or Service Nation. Receive updates on volunteer opportunities and learn how you and your friends and can help others around the world—no matter where you are.



These are just a few ways you can use Facebook to connect with all the people and things that matter most to you, and this is just the beginning. In the coming weeks, you'll see more of your favorite celebrities, musicians, politicians and brands on the site. I can't wait to see what they share next in my News Feed. And, if there are people or organizations you want to connect with that aren't on Facebook, let them know.


Raquel is voting for NASA's next space station to be named 'Stephen Colbert' thanks to "The Colbert Report's" latest status update.

Last week, we shared our philosophy behind the new updates and changes on Facebook to give you a better understanding of why we make certain product decisions. We explained how we've been mapping out the Social Graph, or the network of connections that exist in the world, by enabling you to share with everyone and everything you care about. As more and more is shared, we want you to be able to find out everything that is going on in the world around you at any given moment, or shape the stream of information most relevant to you.

We set up a ...tour on Facebook for you to learn more about the product changes and to give you a way to offer feedback. We received over 30,000 emails, and want to thank all of you who wrote in to share your opinions. Today, we are beginning to roll out the new home page. The update will happen slowly, so everyone should have the new home page over the coming days.



We think you'll find that the new home page makes it even easier for you to create content and receive real-time updates from the people and connections you have on Facebook. It also gives you even more control over who and what you see in your stream by offering new filters. Below are some of the features we're most excited about.


Real-Time Stream

The biggest part of the new home page is your improved News Feed, or the stream of content that's most relevant to you. The stream lets you know what's happening right now in your world by showing you everything your friends and other connections, such as celebrities, athletes and politicians, are sharing. The stream also makes it simple for you to comment on content and participate in conversations in real-time.

The Publisher

One of the important things to remember about the stream is that you are a part of it. That's why an improved Publisher now sits on the top of the home page. It makes it easy to add your own status, links, photos, thoughts and more into the stream. The Publisher has been updated across the site, including on your profile. So anywhere you create content on Facebook, you will know it's going into the stream.

Controlling Your Stream

When you're reading the stream to keep up with friends, you'll see everything that's happening. Of course, you may be more interested in certain friends. You might have one friend who posts about local events while you live elsewhere in the country or the world, which is why the left hand column of the new home page is dedicated to filters. We built in some default filters based around location, people you connect with most often, and your existing Friend Lists. Creating new Friend List filters or modifying old ones is easy from the Friends page. You can also filter the stream to show you posts from specific applications.

Discovering Content

The final piece of the new home page is the Highlights section. Highlights shows you what's happening over a longer period of time—as opposed to the stream, which shows you what's happening right now. This section will feature photos, notes and other content you probably don't want to miss: events lots of your friends are attending, links many people have commented on, public profiles your friends connect to and so on. Birthday notifications and pokes will be in this section, as well.



To keep the design consistent across the site, you'll also notice that your profile will look a little different and more like the home page. The main difference is that your profile picture now appears beside the posts on the Wall tab.

If you have any questions, check out our Help Center, or take the tour. And please keep the feedback coming—we want to hear what you think.


Peter Deng, a product manager, is watching content from his friends stream by on the Facebook home page.

Every spring, I can't wait for the start of March Madness. This popular U.S. college basketball tournament brings out the competitiveness of me and my friends as we fill out brackets with our predictions for winning teams. Starting in 2006, we brought the tradition to Facebook by using the first brackets application to organize and share all of our picks online. Since then, the number of ways to connect over the 63-game NCAA basketball tournament have only increased.

This year, you can use a number of Platform applications to compete with your... friends' predictions. On Selection Sunday, March 15, find out which teams will face off in their quest to be the champion, and check out any of the following apps to get started:

• CBSSports.com Brackets by CBS Sports
• 2009 Bracket Challenge by Citizen Sports
• 2009 Bracket Challenge by Watercooler

Melissa is sad that Stanford didn't make the tournament this year but will be watching all 63 games alongside her Facebook friends. Go Pac-10!

A few months ago, we announced Facebook Connect, an extension of Facebook Platform that makes it easy for you to bring your friends with you all over the Web. We're now expanding this to Apple's revolutionary iPhone and iPod touch, making it easy to connect with your Facebook friends in your favorite applications from Apple's App Store.

If you've used Facebook Connect on the Web, this will seem pretty familiar. You can now use Facebook Connect on your iPhone in the same way you can for a website. Simply download any application featuring... Facebook Connect and log in using your Facebook account from your iPhone. Then, you'll be able to easily find your Facebook friends. They will be able to see the same profile information as they can on the site, controlled by your privacy settings. You can also share what you're doing with your iPhone applications with all of your Facebook friends by publishing stories back to your profile.

For instance, you can use Facebook Connect with the Urban Spoon application. Once connected, you can see which restaurants your friends have reviewed on the iPhone as you are walking to dinner and share your thoughts afterwards.



With the game, "Who Has the Biggest Brain" by Playfish, you can connect with Facebook and try to beat your friends' scores, whether they are on their iPhone or their computer.



Win or lose, you'll have the option to publish a story back to Facebook, where all of your friends can see it. Sharing with your friends is easy with Facebook Connect for iPhone.



We've worked closely with a lot of developers to make Facebook Connect for iPhone available today. Use your Facebook account to find places to meet your friends using maps on Whrrl or challenge your friends to play Agency Wars, Binary Game, iBowl, Live Poker and Tap Tap Revenge 2.

In the coming days, many more applications will be available in Apple's App Store so keep checking back. If you don't see your favorite iPhone application soon, ask the developer to implement Facebook Connect – together we can make your application experience on the iPhone truly social.


Joe Hewitt, the engineer who built Facebook for iPhone, can't wait to connect with his Facebook friends on his iPhone.

One of the top priorities at Facebook is offering privacy controls that let you choose exactly what you share with whom. We have largely focused on enabling you to give access to your profile to people you confirmed as friends and people in your networks. While these controls remain important and a priority for us, many of you have explained that you also want to open parts of your profile to a wider audience. Starting today, you can choose to make your profile and any of your content available to everyone on Facebook.

None of your existing... privacy settings have changed. This is an additional setting for those of you who wish to share with a broader audience.

Just go to your privacy page and change the settings you want to the new "Everyone" option. You can opt to make one or all of the following profile elements more open: Profile, Status Updates, Links, Wall Posts, Basic Info, Personal Info, Education Info, Work Info, Photos of You and Videos of You.



By changing your Profile setting to "Everyone", anyone who finds you through a search on Facebook or sees a post or comment you make can now click on your content and view the elements of your profile you've opted to make open. While some special rules remain in place about who can see your profile if you are a minor, people generally won't need to be friends with you or share a common network in order to view your content if you choose the new "Everyone" setting.

In the past, searching for friends you haven't seen in a while or someone who has a common name may have been difficult. You may have only been able to see their search listing and a small thumbnail version of a photo, if that. With this change, people can use the "Everyone" option and make it easier for you to find and connect to all the people you know.


Mark Slee, an engineer at Facebook, can't wait to see what everyone thinks.

We recently announced a new way to develop Facebook's governing structure. Since then, we've heard from many of you as we work to further develop the documents that will explain the relationship between Facebook and our users. We're now more than halfway through the comment period—the time when you can submit feedback on two proposed documents. The first is the Facebook Principles, which reflect the philosophy and values we aspire to, and the second is the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, which will govern Facebook's relationships with... users and others who interact with us and replace the existing Terms of Use.

If you haven't had a chance to read the documents and comment yourself, we encourage you to do so now. The comment period will close at 12:01 a.m. PST on March 29. We want to govern our system in an open and transparent way, and your involvement in this process is crucial. You can find the Facebook Principles here and the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities here in English and a number of other languages.

To date, each of the Town Hall groups has over 10,000 members, and we've received nearly 3,000 comments. The Facebook Legal team is busy reading through your feedback to identify common threads that we hope to address with a revised version of the documents that will then be put up for a vote.

We're excited about this new process and encouraged to see a participatory model of governance in other contexts. Just this week, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine opened up his state budget proposal for comment by supporters of his Facebook Page, saying he's "interested in what people have to say and taking some time to answer their questions."

We look forward to seeing what you have to say and answering your questions and concerns in the next version of our documents, as well. Thanks for your constructive participation so far, and keep checking back for more updates on this process. We'll be sharing information about how voting will work in the coming weeks.


Simon Axten, an associate on the Public Policy team, is looking forward to your comments.

Since we launched Facebook's home page design, we've received thousands of e-mails, Wall posts and comments from you along with direct feedback from all of our friends and family. If you've already given us feedback, thank you. Hearing what you have to say, whether criticism or praise, helps us build a product that serves you better.

Whenever we build something new or tweak something old, our motivation is the same: to help you share with the people you care about and find out what's happening with them. Before we launch any new product, it... first must pass a process of design, development and testing with a more limited user audience. If those results are satisfactory, we then release it for all of you to use. We know that no amount of testing is as valuable as what you have to say. For this reason, we will always look to you, our users, to tell us what is working and what isn't so we can continually make improvements.

Here are the top four things we've been hearing from all of you about the changes, and the areas where we're focusing on improvements immediately and over the next several weeks.

Add more control and relevance in the stream
One of the great parts of Facebook is the ability to share and consume different types of content, such as photos, videos and notes, all in one place. We've heard from you that you want even more variety and control in your stream, and for it to update automatically. Some specific improvements we're making are:

At Facebook, we think it's important to listen to the people who are using the site, since you are our biggest fans, experts and critics. We're dedicated to making sure your feedback is incorporated into the decisions we make in order to create the best experiences for you and your friends on Facebook. We want to take a moment to thank you for reaching out to us and describe how we integrate what you have to say into our product decisions.

We receive and read a lot of emails from you, but they only represent one piece of the puzzle. We often run... product testing sessions, which involves bringing people who use Facebook (and sometimes even people who don't use Facebook) to our offices and watching them use or talk about the site. By seeing people interact with new features, we can better understand how others might engage with them and pinpoint any areas that need improvement. Sometimes, we even use a technology called an eye tracker, which helps us understand what people are focusing their attention on and more importantly, what they may not even be noticing.