The Facebook Blog

Original Post Dec. 15, 2010.

Every day, people add more than 100 million tags to photos on Facebook. They do it because it's an easy way to share photos and memories. Unlike photos that get forgotten in a camera or an unshared album, tagged photos help you and your friends relive everything from that life-altering skydiving trip to a birthday dinner where the laughter never stopped. Tags make photos one of the most popular features on Facebook.

While tags are an essential tool for sharing important moments, many of you have said tagging photos can be a chore. (Like that time you had to tag your cousin and her fiancé over and over and over again in 64 different pictures of their engagement party, and then go back and tag the guests.)

Since October, we've been working to make this process easier for you. First we added group tagging, so you could type one name and apply it to multiple photos of the same person. Now we're announcing tag suggestions, which will make tagging multiple photos even more convenient.

Because photos are such an important part of Facebook, we want to be sure you know exactly how tag suggestions work: When you or a friend upload new photos, we use face recognition software—similar to that found in many photo editing tools—to match your new photos to other photos you're tagged in. We group similar photos together and, whenever possible, suggest the name of the friend in the photos.

If for any reason you don't want your name to be suggested, you will be able to disable suggested tags in your Privacy Settings. Just click "Customize Settings" and "Suggest photos of me to friends." Your name will no longer be suggested in photo tags, though friends can still tag you manually. You can learn more about this feature in our Help Center.

Now if you upload pictures from your cousin's wedding, we'll group together pictures of the bride and suggest her name. Instead of typing her name 64 times, all you'll need to do is click "Save" to tag all of your cousin's pictures at once. By making tagging easier than before, you're more likely to know right away when friends post photos. We notify you when you're tagged, and you can untag yourself at any time.  As always, only friends can tag each other in photos.

We'll be debuting tag suggestions to users in the United States over the next few weeks. Look for tags suggestions when you upload groups of photos that feature the same friends, and see how they can help you share life's occasions—large and small—every day.

Justin Mitchell, a Facebook engineer, is looking forward to spending more time making memories and less time tagging them.

But it's not just the people you hear from that make your News Feed interesting. It also matters how much you visit Facebook. If you haven't returned in a week, you may want to see a summary of top stories first. If you've already visited several times that day, you probably care more about recent news.

Starting today, it will be easier to keep up with the people in your life no matter how frequently or infrequently you're on Facebook.

News Feed: See What Matters at the Top

When you pick up a newspaper after not reading it for a week, the front page quickly clues you into the most interesting stories. In the past, News Feed hasn't worked like that.  Updates slide down in chronological order so it's tough to zero in on what matters most.  

Now, News Feed will act more like your own personal newspaper. You won't have to worry about missing important stuff. All your news will be in a single stream with the most interesting stories featured at the top. If you haven't visited Facebook for a while, the first things you'll see are top photos and statuses posted while you've been away. They're marked with an easy-to-spot blue corner.

If you check Facebook more frequently, you'll see the most recent stories first. Photos will also be bigger and easier to enjoy while you're scrolling through.

Ticker: Join Friends in Real-Time

News Feed often has a time lag. Usually when you're on Facebook, a lot of your friends are too. Until now, there hasn't been an easy way to see and chat with your friends about photos, articles, and other things they're posting in real-time. The new ticker helps you do just that.

Ticker shows you the same stuff you were already seeing on Facebook, but it brings your conversations to life by displaying updates instantaneously. Now when a friend comments, asks a question or shares something like a check in, you'll be able to join the conversation right away. Click on anything in ticker to see the full story and chime in – without losing your place.

If you have a wider screen, slide the grey bar between ticker and chat up or down to adjust how many updates you see at a time. To control who can see your updates anywhere on Facebook, including in ticker and News Feed, adjust your sharing control or apps settings.

We hope these improvements make your conversations on Facebook more lively, no matter how often you visit. For tips about how to use improved Friend Lists, and the new Subscribe button right from News Feed, check out this video.

Mark Tonkelowitz, an engineering manager at Facebook, looks forward to seeing conversations about improved News Feed in his ticker.

With this update, the app is now available for BlackBerry in addition to iPhone (including iOS 5) and Android. We've also added support for 22 new languages for Android, and 12 new languages for iPhone.

Messenger for BlackBerry

If you haven't tried Messenger yet, you can get the app today or watch this video to see Messenger in action:

Originally Published on Tuesday, August 9, 2011:

 More and more of us rely on our phones to send and receive messages. But it isn't always easy to know the best way to reach someone on their phone. Should you send an email or text? Which will they check first? Did they even get your last message?

We think messaging should be easier than that. You should be able to write a message, click "Send" and know that you will reach the person right away.

So today, we're introducing Messenger, a new mobile app that simplifies how messaging works, and gives you a faster way to message friends and small groups.

A whole new app

Messenger is a separate app, so it only takes one click to get to your messages or send a new one. Messages are delivered through notifications and texts, so your friends are more likely to get them right away.

You can use Messenger to reach all of your friends -- whether they're on Facebook or in your phone contacts. All you have to do is type the person's name.

The Messenger app is an extension of Facebook messages, so all your conversations are in one place, including your texts, chats, emails and messages. Whether you're on your phone or on the web, you can see the full history of all your messages.

Make plans with groups

When you're on the go, coordinating a bunch of people can be tricky, especially if plans change at the last minute. With Messenger, you can quickly start a group conversation and message everyone at once.

If you choose to add your location, the people you're messaging with can easily find each other on the map. You can also attach photos, so everyone else can see and comment on what you're looking at.

How to get Messenger

Messenger will be available for both iPhone and Android starting today. Just search for "Facebook Messenger" in your phone's app store, or get a link to the app texted to your phone.

Lucy Zhang, Beluga Co-founder and Facebook Engineer, looks forward to never having a hard time coordinating movie night again.

A hands-on Facebook

Use your fingertips to scroll through your News Feed. Give the screen a swipe to page through albums. Pinch a picture to zoom in. Whatever you're up to, using Facebook on your iPad just feels fun.

Bigger, better photos

Photos really shine on the iPad. They're bigger and easy to flip through, like a real photo album. It's like having a slideshow with all your friends and memories, wherever you go.

See all your photo albums

View an individual photo

Navigate anywhere, fast

Your games, apps, groups and lists are in the left-hand menu, so you don't have to dig around to find the stuff you use most. And your messages and notifications are at the top of every screen, so you can respond to friends and keep up with important updates—without losing your place.

Use the left-hand navigation to get around

Get notifications and messages at the top of every screen

Chat, games and other features

The app comes with a bunch of other new features: You can chat with friends right from your iPad, for example, or play games and use apps in full-screen mode. You can also watch high-res videos inline, record HD video and stream to Airplay devices.

See and send messages

Get the App

Facebook for iPad is now available in the App Store.

We've also made several improvements to the iPhone app and m.facebook.com. With your next update, you'll see a simplified navigation, faster search and access to more games and apps.

We hope you like Facebook for iPad!

Leon Dubinsky, Facebook mobile engineer, is sharing his new puppy's photographs with his friends from the comfort of his couch.

With the Subscribe button, we're making it easier to do both. In the next few days, you'll start seeing this button on friends' and others' profiles. You can use it to:

1. Choose what you see from people in News Feed
2. Hear from people, even if you're not friends
3. Let people hear from you, even if you're not friends

Choose What You See in News Feed

You're already getting your friends' posts in News Feed. With the Subscribed button, you can choose how much you see from them:

• All updates: Everything your friend posts
• Most updates: The amount you'd normally see
• Important updates only: Just highlights, like a new job or move

You can also decide what types of updates you see. For example, you could see just photos from one friend, no stories about games from another, and nothing at all from someone else.

Choosing what you see is optional. If you don't want to change what you see from someone, just ignore the button.

Subscribe to Interesting People

The Subscribe button also lets you hear from interesting people you're not friends with—like journalists, artists and political figures.

If you see a Subscribe button on your favorite blogger's profile, this means you can subscribe. Just click the button to get their public updates right in your News Feed.

Just like with friends, you can choose how many and what types of updates you see after you've subscribed.

Get Your Own Subscribers

If you'd like to share your public updates with more than just friends, you can get a Subscribe button on your profile, too. People who subscribe to you will get posts you set as "Public" in their News Feeds. This is an entirely optional feature – you need to opt in.

To let people subscribe, go to the Subscribe Page and click Allow Subscribers.

Once you allow subscribers, you can decide who can comment and what notifications you get. You'll also see a Subscribers tab on your profile, where you can see who subscribes to you.

Let Us Know What You Think

We'd love to know how you feel about the Subscribe button. Contact us to give feedback!

Learn More

To learn more about the Subscribe button or allow subscribers, visit the Help Center.

Lists have existed for several years, but you've told us how time-consuming it is to organize lists for different parts of your life and keep them up to date.

To make lists incredibly easy and even more useful, we're announcing three improvements:

• Smart lists - You'll see smart lists that create themselves and stay up-to-date based on profile info your friends have in common with you--like your work, school, family and city.
• Close Friends and Acquaintances lists - You can see your best friends' photos and posts in one place, and see less from people you're not as close to.
• Better suggestions - You can add the right friends to your lists without a lot of effort.

Friend Lists are completely optional. If you don't like lists, you don't have to use them.

Smart Lists

Managing lists is boring. That's why smart lists do the work for you. To start, we'll offer you smart lists for:

• Work
• School
• Family
• City

For instance, if you list Boston College as a school you've attended and your friends John and Sarah do too, then you would instantly have a smart list called "Boston College" with John and Sarah on it. This means that if you're having a grad party or a college reunion, you can easily share photos with just your college friends, without bothering other people you know.

You can also add or remove friends manually to make the lists even more accurate.

Close Friends and Acquaintances Lists

• Close Friends list - Add your best friends to your Close Friends list and you'll see everything they post in News Feed. You can even jump straight to a view of your News Feed that only shows their photos and news. You can also receive notifications when they post updates, so you don't miss anything important.

• Acquaintances list - Add friends like old classmates or business contacts to your Acquaintances list and you'll see less of them in your News Feed. We'll still show you important things they post -- like when they get married or move to a new city -- so you don't lose touch completely.

Okay, what about your boss or the few other people you like but just don't want to share with on Facebook? You can add these folks to your Restricted list and they will only see your Public posts. You'll still be friends on Facebook so you can send them messages or tag them in a post if you want to connect to them from time to time. It's totally up to you.

Unlike your smart lists for your work, school, family and city, we don't create Close Friends and Acquaintances lists for you. Since these types of relationships are unique, it's important for you to decide who goes in your Close Friends, Acquaintances or Restricted lists -- if you use them at all.

If you created your own lists in the past, you can still use them. You can also continue to create whatever lists you want in the future. When you post something to a list that you've created -- including your Close Friends and Acquaintances lists -- no one will be able to see the title of the list.

The people on the list you've shared with will be able to see each others' names. This gives them more context. For example, if I see that a post is shared with my five closest friends, I am much more likely to comment freely on it than I would be if I didn't know who else could see the post.

Better Suggestions

We provide suggestions for your smart lists, Close Friends, Acquaintances, and your own lists, making them easier to create and update.

When you add someone as a friend or confirm a friendship request, you'll be able to add the friend to any of your existing lists.

See and Share With Exactly Who You Want

Each of your lists has its own News Feed, where you can see just the photos, status updates and other posts from the people on the list. To view list News Feeds, look for the Lists section on the left side of your homepage and click the list you want to see.

Whenever you feel like sharing something with a narrower set of friends, simply use the dropdown audience selector in the sharing tool and pick one of your lists.

You can also use lists to help control who sees what on your profile, using the audience selector next to each detail on your profile.

Improved Friend lists will be available to everyone this week and will be rolling out on mobile over the next few weeks.  We'd love to hear your feedback at facebook.com/ListsTeam.

When you're playing games, you'll now see a separate stream of your friends' game activity, scores and achievements in a ticker. The best way to find new games is through friends, and now you'll have more opportunities to see what they're playing.

Maybe your best friend has started playing Sims; your roommate has a new high score on PacMan; or your mom and sister have taken up Words With Friends. Simply click on a story and you can start playing the game yourself.

You can now control who can see these stories for each individual app in your Settings. If you want friends to see you're playing one game but not another, you can change that. You're also able to limit visibility directly from the ticker by clicking "X" on a story to remove it.

More room to play

We're also introducing a bigger screen for game play so you can have a more immersive experience. You'll begin seeing games that can expand to full screen, such as CityVille, Zoo World, Monster World, and Mystery Manor in the coming days.

Bookmark your Favorites

If you use a lot of apps or games, you can now keep the best ones at the top of your bookmarks on your homepage. To add a new favorite, click the menu next to the bookmark. You can also rearrange, remove, and edit settings from the same menu.

Whether you like sports games, word games, strategy or classic games, they are all better when played with your friends. We hope these updates make playing games on Facebook even more fun.

Jared is playing the 'Jersey Shore' game.

UPDATE on Thursday, Oct. 29: Today, a San Jose, Calif. court awarded Facebook $711 million in damages against Sanford Wallace, one of the spammers who accessed people's accounts without their permission and sent phony Wall posts and messages. While we don't expect to receive the vast majority of the award, we hope that this will act as a continued deterrent against these criminals. Most notably, the judge referred Wallace to the U.S. Attorney's Office with a request that Wallace be prosecuted for criminal contempt, which means that in addition to the judgment, he now faces possible jail time. This is another important victory in our fight against spam. We will continue to pursue damages against other spammers.

Published on Friday, March 6

We hate spam just as much as you do, and we're always working to stop it. Last week, we won a ruling in this ongoing fight. A court in San Jose, California issued a temporary restraining order against three spammers—Sanford Wallace, Adam Arzoomanian and Scott Shaw. They broke the law by sending unwanted messages and wall posts to people on Facebook, which in the United States violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the California Anti-Phishing Act and the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM). Now, any contact these spammers have with you or anyone on Facebook could land them in jail.

This isn't the first time we've gone to court to battle spam. Last November, we also told you about our first victory—an $873 million judgment made against Adam Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital for sending sleazy messages to people on Facebook. This was the largest judgment ever for an action brought under CAN-SPAM. We continue to work on collecting as much as possible from Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue (likely far less than the full amount) and have hired a firm to help with this. We're hopeful that this kind of persistent pressure will act as a deterrent against those attempting to trick and annoy people on Facebook.

Of course, this fight requires a team effort. In addition to our dedicated legal team, Facebook also has security experts and engineers focused on the integrity of the site. We're continuing to build systems to prevent and respond to spam attacks. Our User Operations team also works around the clock to identify problems and assist people who've been affected.

We will continue bringing spammers to justice, but we need need your help, too. Report spam by using the links located throughout the site.

Be sure to also check out the tips and information on our Security Page to educate yourself on how to keep your account secure.

Sam O'Rourke from the Facebook legal team is busy keeping you safe from spam.

• 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.

Learn More

For more information about the new profile, go to www.facebook.com/about/profile or visit our Help Center.

Phil, an engineer at Facebook, is adding his teammates to projects he's worked on recently.

During President Obama's White House Conference on Bullying Prevention last month, we announced plans to expand our existing safety resources with new content for families. Beginning today, you can visit the newly redesigned Family Safety Center. There, you'll find useful articles for parents and teens and videos on safety and privacy, as well as many other resources. In the coming weeks, we'll also be providing a free, downloadable guide for teachers, written by safety experts Linda Fogg Phillips, B.J. Fogg and Derek Baird. We hope this guide will help educators with social media in the classroom.

Social Reporting Tools

We also recently unveiled a new social reporting tool that allows people to notify a member of their community, in addition to Facebook, when they see something they don't like. Safety and child psychology experts tell us that online issues are frequently a reflection of what is happening offline. By encouraging people to seek help from friends, we hope that many of these situations can be resolved face to face. The impact has been encouraging, and we're now expanding social reporting to other major sections of Facebook, including Profiles, Pages and Groups.

Advanced Security Features

We're also starting to introduce Two Factor Authentication, a new feature to help prevent unauthorized access to your account. If you turn this new feature on, we'll ask you to enter a code anytime you try to log into Facebook from a new device. This additional security helps confirm that it's really you trying to log in.

We announced earlier this year that people could experience Facebook over a secure connection using HTTPS. This feature helps protect your personal information and is particularly useful if you're uncertain about the security of your network or you're using public wifi to access Facebook. Today, we're improving HTTPS so if you start using a non-HTTPS application on Facebook, we automatically switch your session back to HTTPS when you're finished.

We think that social solutions to safety will become increasingly important to using the web. Tools like social reporting will help make our community even stronger, and we encourage you to use them.

Arturo, a director of engineering at Facebook, is excited about social reporting.