We frequently end blog entries with a sentence along the lines of, "if you have any suggestions, please send them here." It may seem as if you are sending your thoughts into a void, but our customer support team reads every suggestion that comes in and compiles lists of suggestions for everyone in the company. It helps us out a lot when you, the users, tell us what the small changes are that will improve the site. Whenever possible, we make these tweaks in order to make your time on Facebook even better. To offer a few examples, over the past few months, you've been responsible for:

Last week saw one of the more historic midterm elections in recent times. The political shift in Washington and state capitals was certainly remarkable. But more importantly, young Americans turned out in droves to make their voices heard this November. According to the University of Maryland's Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, voting among 18 to 29 year olds increased 20 percent on 2002, with 2 million more young adults casting ballots.

Those numbers are exactly what we were hoping to see. The whole drive behind our Election 2006 project was to get more young Americans into voting booths. But no matter what it was that got you to the polls last Tuesday, it's great to see you flexing your political muscle and sending the government a message that younger Americans matter in the political arena.

Ever since we launched News Feed, we've been receiving a lot of suggestions on how to make it better. We've heard ideas like, "Show me fewer stories about wall posts," or, "Show me more stories about my roommates," or, "Show me more stories about wall posts and fewer stories about my roommates."

In the face of all this feedback, we've drawn one simple conclusion: everyone wants something a little bit different out of his or her News Feed. To help you out, starting today you'll be able to customize the selection of stories displayed in your own News Feed by visiting your News Feed Preferences page.

There are two main ways to express your preferences:

Did you forget to thank your friend for letting you crash for two weeks while you were "passing through town" last month? Or for helping you move that ridiculously heavy couch out of storage? Or are you just feeling thankful in general?

Gone are the days of gawking at celebrities on people.com without being able to share the link with Facebook friends in two clicks. No longer do we live in a world in which we're required to shuffle through email addresses or scour through AIM buddy lists in order to share the glorious content of an article on theonion.com.

Starting today, there are links to share on Facebook planted all across the Internet, from the articles at Time to the videos at Photobucket.

I think it's time to let the secret out about Facebook. This isn't a one-man show anymore. When you write to Facebook and address the message, "Dear Mark Zuckerberg," he's not the one reading it. But don't worry, we are.

"We" are the Customer Support Team. As I see it, our primary job is to be the voice of the user within the company. For starters, we're all users ourselves. Alright, fine, that's an understatement. Most of us are addicts. Seriously, we're going to organize meetings. Maybe even start a Facebook group.

More importantly, we spend our time communicating with you guys about the site. Since I started here, I've been in direct contact with thousands of Facebook users. People aren't scared to speak their mind…and we love it. It's great to be involved with a product that means so much to so many people.

We use these interactions to help improve the Facebook experience. If you report a bug, we'll work with the engineering team to get things resolved. We listen to your feedback and suggestions and work with the Product Designers to improve the site. Customer Support heard the requests for more News Feed privacy, and we passed this feedback on. Hopefully, you are happy with the new options that were built in.

As a developer of News Feed, I can tell you that we weren't intending to build a platform for global activism. The idea was that if a bunch of your friends did something, you would want to find out. Since News Feed launched, a group can now grow from 1 to 100,000 members in a day. Participation means more exposure, and if the issue is a good one, that means more participation. You do the math.

At some point, a kind soul at New York University started a global group called, "For Every 1,000 people that join this group, I will donate $1 to Darfur."

He clearly intended to raise visibility on an issue that lives under the rug. To get people asking questions, writing letters, telling their friends, maybe even giving a dollar themselves. At least pulling up a map of Africa.

Within a few days it had nearly half a million members, about 5% of Facebook users. The group grew quickly and broadly enough that almost everybody using the site that week got a News Feed story about the group on their homepage.

None of the participants were elected officials, paid representatives, advertisers, or experts in their field. There wasn't an organized campaign, nor was there a sponsoring organization. But for a while it was the fastest growing group on the site, and to this day it's one of the largest. It was unprecedented.

Of the fastest growing groups on Facebook today, October 9th, number one and two are about raising awareness on how to fight breast cancer. All day people have been joining, more every minute. Not just members, but donors too. Who started it all? People with computers. What did they have to do to be heard? Take the time to explain the issue, and then choose a picture. Why the success? People care. The causes speak for themselves; and when there are important causes suffering from lack of visibility, it's exciting to see a place where issues can surface without requiring the endowment of organized media.


Chris, a Facebook Engineer, will give a dollar away. And if 100,000 people join...anything might happen.