The Facebook Blog
This week something great happened: two of my former students connected with me on Facebook. Three years ago, I taught writing at a small college in New Hampshire, and the new friend requests reminded me of how great it is to see what your former students are up to years later, as well as how difficult it can be to be a teacher.
Teachers work with an audience that is by definition impressionable. This means that being a teacher comes with the added responsibility of also being a public figure. As with most jobs, the extra-curricular life of a teacher has professional consequences, which is especially important on Facebook where people are more connected and sharing more often.
Some teachers stay away from Facebook altogether, while others — like some of my friends — have found creative workarounds such as only accepting friend requests from students who've graduated or those who are over the age of 18. However, it doesn't have to be that difficult. In fact, it is useful and rewarding to connect with your students on Facebook. So, in honor of all the people who are heading back to school this month, here are some tips for using Facebook.
Create Friend Lists
You can sort your friends into lists, without them even knowing it. For instance, if you're a teacher, you can create a Friend List called "students" and adjust your privacy settings to control what people in that list see. You then could allow students to see basic information about you and maybe your photo albums from a recent trip you took, but not photos in which you've been tagged.
You can create a named list to organize your relationships in whichever way works best for you: close friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues, students, among others. Just select the "Create a List" link on the left-hand side of the home page or create a new list from your Friends Page. Each time you receive a friend request, you'll have the option to add that person to the appropriate list as you accept them.
By using the Friend Lists you've created, you also can filter your home page to get updates from the people you're interested in. If you're a teacher, you can see what your students are sharing on the site by filtering for that group from the left-hand side of the page. If one group is most important to you, you can even set it as the default view for your home page by dragging it to the top of the left hand bar.
Teachers work with an audience that is by definition impressionable. This means that being a teacher comes with the added responsibility of also being a public figure. As with most jobs, the extra-curricular life of a teacher has professional consequences, which is especially important on Facebook where people are more connected and sharing more often.
Some teachers stay away from Facebook altogether, while others — like some of my friends — have found creative workarounds such as only accepting friend requests from students who've graduated or those who are over the age of 18. However, it doesn't have to be that difficult. In fact, it is useful and rewarding to connect with your students on Facebook. So, in honor of all the people who are heading back to school this month, here are some tips for using Facebook.
Create Friend Lists
You can sort your friends into lists, without them even knowing it. For instance, if you're a teacher, you can create a Friend List called "students" and adjust your privacy settings to control what people in that list see. You then could allow students to see basic information about you and maybe your photo albums from a recent trip you took, but not photos in which you've been tagged.
You can create a named list to organize your relationships in whichever way works best for you: close friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues, students, among others. Just select the "Create a List" link on the left-hand side of the home page or create a new list from your Friends Page. Each time you receive a friend request, you'll have the option to add that person to the appropriate list as you accept them.
By using the Friend Lists you've created, you also can filter your home page to get updates from the people you're interested in. If you're a teacher, you can see what your students are sharing on the site by filtering for that group from the left-hand side of the page. If one group is most important to you, you can even set it as the default view for your home page by dragging it to the top of the left hand bar.
Check Your Privacy Settings
Don't be afraid to severely restrict what certain people can see. For instance, if you're a teacher, you may not invite a student to a dinner party with friends, and the same goes for your boss or other people you don't interact with in those types of social settings. You should use your Facebook privacy settings to reflect the types of relationships you have.
Once you've created your Friend Lists, you can use them to customize privacy levels for different information and content you include on your Profile. Select the "Settings" link located on the top menu bar and navigate to the Profile section of your Privacy page. From there, you can select "Edit Custom Settings," which will open a field for "Except These People." Adding a friend or Friend List here will exclude those people from seeing the information in question about you.
For example, maybe you want your close friends to see your favorite activities and your contact information so they can reach you easily, but you don't want your students to see those sections of your profile. You can exclude your "students" list from seeing the "Personal Information" and specific "Contact Information" sections of your profile.
We hope these suggestions can not only help students and teachers connect, but help all of you share with even more people in your lives.
Jesse, a training and communications lead, is a teacher here at Facebook.
A couple of months ago, we made it easier for people to find and connect with each other by using Facebook usernames. Beginning today, you also will be able to log in to your Facebook account with your username from any Web browser, mobile phone or Facebook Connect-enabled website.
For example, I can enter my username, "Bikash," in place of my email address when I log in to Facebook.
For example, I can enter my username, "Bikash," in place of my email address when I log in to Facebook.
You will still be able to log in with your email address. We just wanted to add a more convenient way to access your Facebook account. A username gives you an easy-to-remember web address for your Facebook profile so your friends can more easily find and connect with you. If you don't have a Facebook username yet, you can choose one here.
Bikash, a Facebook engineer, can be found at www.facebook.com/bikash, thanks to his username.
Facebook's engineers thrive on innovation and experimentation. We're encouraged to work on projects that inspire us and build on new ideas, but not all of these features and improvements wind up launching on the site. In some instances, they're not quite ready for prime time, are a bit esoteric or don't quite fit. Now, for all the products that wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to see the light of day, we're introducing Facebook Prototypes.
Facebook Prototypes let us share the experimentation going on inside the walls of Facebook with the rest of the world. You'll be able to test any of the products and features we launch as Facebook Prototypes and then provide feedback directly to those of us who built them. To access Prototypes, visit the Application Directory and filter by "Prototypes." From there, you can activate or download any of the Prototypes listed.
For instance, during a recent Hackathon — an all-night coding event that gives us a chance to build projects we just don't have time to pursue during regular hours — I worked on an application called Desktop Notifications, for Mac OS X. The application helps you keep up to date with what's happening on Facebook.
Already, you can see when people take actions on Facebook related to you through the notifications that appear at the bottom right corner of your browser or through email notifications — quickly check out a photo you've been tagged in, a new friend request or read a comment on your status update. Now, you can receive the same notifications even when you're not on Facebook.com or checking email by using Desktop Notifications.
After activating the application, you'll see a Facebook icon next to your computer's clock that will light up with a pop-up alert whenever you receive a new notification. When you click on the notification, you'll be taken directly to the action on Facebook in a new browser window. If you want to just read the notification without going to Facebook, you can dismiss the notification by waving your mouse over it. The application also keeps track of your Facebook messages and gives you an easy way to update your Facebook status.
Other Prototypes include Recent Comments Filter, which allows you to sort your News Feed by items on which your friends have recently commented; Photo Tag Search, which enables you to find photos by the people who are tagged in them; and Enhanced Events Emails, which allows you to add a Facebook Event directly to your personal calendar in Google, Microsoft Outlook and many other calendar products with just one click.
Facebook Prototypes let us share the experimentation going on inside the walls of Facebook with the rest of the world. You'll be able to test any of the products and features we launch as Facebook Prototypes and then provide feedback directly to those of us who built them. To access Prototypes, visit the Application Directory and filter by "Prototypes." From there, you can activate or download any of the Prototypes listed.
For instance, during a recent Hackathon — an all-night coding event that gives us a chance to build projects we just don't have time to pursue during regular hours — I worked on an application called Desktop Notifications, for Mac OS X. The application helps you keep up to date with what's happening on Facebook.
Already, you can see when people take actions on Facebook related to you through the notifications that appear at the bottom right corner of your browser or through email notifications — quickly check out a photo you've been tagged in, a new friend request or read a comment on your status update. Now, you can receive the same notifications even when you're not on Facebook.com or checking email by using Desktop Notifications.
After activating the application, you'll see a Facebook icon next to your computer's clock that will light up with a pop-up alert whenever you receive a new notification. When you click on the notification, you'll be taken directly to the action on Facebook in a new browser window. If you want to just read the notification without going to Facebook, you can dismiss the notification by waving your mouse over it. The application also keeps track of your Facebook messages and gives you an easy way to update your Facebook status.
Other Prototypes include Recent Comments Filter, which allows you to sort your News Feed by items on which your friends have recently commented; Photo Tag Search, which enables you to find photos by the people who are tagged in them; and Enhanced Events Emails, which allows you to add a Facebook Event directly to your personal calendar in Google, Microsoft Outlook and many other calendar products with just one click.
Keep in mind that Prototypes are exactly that — unfinished versions of products we're testing that may have some kinks to work out. Some Prototypes may eventually launch to everyone on Facebook and become part of the Facebook experience, while others may eventually be removed from the Prototypes directory all together. We won't test every new product in Prototypes before launch, but we're excited about testing new ideas regularly and often.
We already get a lot of suggestions for new features. Keep them coming. They just might get built.
Lee, a product designer, is using the prototype of Desktop Notifications to keep his finger on the Facebook pulse.
As of today, Facebook now serves 300 million people across the world. It's a large number, but the way we think about this is that we're just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone.
Because we want to make it as easy and fast as possible for the world to connect, one of the things we think a lot about is how to make Facebook perform even faster and more efficiently as we grow. We face a lot of fun and important challenges that require rethinking the current systems for enabling information flow across the web.
The site we all use every day is built by a relatively small group of the smartest engineers and entrepreneurs who are solving substantial problems and each making a huge impact for the 300 million people using Facebook. In fact, the ratio of Facebook users to Facebook engineers makes it so that every engineer here is responsible for more than one million users. It's hard to have an impact like that anywhere else.
We're also succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. Earlier this year, we said we expected to be cash flow positive sometime in 2010, and I'm pleased to share that we achieved this milestone last quarter. This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term.
Over time, Facebook will continue to be as strong as all of the connections you make. We'll continue building new and better things to make connecting with the people you care about as easy and rewarding as possible. We thank all of you for helping us reach the point where we are connecting 300 million people, and we hope to serve you and many more people in increasingly deep and innovative ways in the months and years ahead.
Because we want to make it as easy and fast as possible for the world to connect, one of the things we think a lot about is how to make Facebook perform even faster and more efficiently as we grow. We face a lot of fun and important challenges that require rethinking the current systems for enabling information flow across the web.
The site we all use every day is built by a relatively small group of the smartest engineers and entrepreneurs who are solving substantial problems and each making a huge impact for the 300 million people using Facebook. In fact, the ratio of Facebook users to Facebook engineers makes it so that every engineer here is responsible for more than one million users. It's hard to have an impact like that anywhere else.
We're also succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. Earlier this year, we said we expected to be cash flow positive sometime in 2010, and I'm pleased to share that we achieved this milestone last quarter. This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term.
Over time, Facebook will continue to be as strong as all of the connections you make. We'll continue building new and better things to make connecting with the people you care about as easy and rewarding as possible. We thank all of you for helping us reach the point where we are connecting 300 million people, and we hope to serve you and many more people in increasingly deep and innovative ways in the months and years ahead.
UPDATE on Monday, September 14: Status tagging is now available to everyone on Facebook.
One of the most popular features on Facebook is tagging, which gives you the ability to identify and reference people in photos, videos and notes. Today, we are adding a new way to tag people and other things you're connected to on Facebook — in status updates and other posts from the Publisher. It's another way to let people know who and what you're talking about.
People often update their status to reflect their thoughts and feelings, or to mention things they feel like sharing. Sometimes that includes referencing friends, groups or even events they are attending — for instance, posting "Grabbing lunch with Meredith Chin" or "I'm heading to Starbucks Coffee Company — anyone want some coffee?".
Now, when you are writing a status update and want to add a friend's name to something you are posting, just include the "@" symbol beforehand. As you type the name of what you would like to reference, a drop-down menu will appear that allows you to choose from your list of friends and other connections, including groups, events, applications and Pages. Soon, you'll be able to tag friends from applications as well. The "@" symbol will not be displayed in the published status update or post after you've added your tags.
One of the most popular features on Facebook is tagging, which gives you the ability to identify and reference people in photos, videos and notes. Today, we are adding a new way to tag people and other things you're connected to on Facebook — in status updates and other posts from the Publisher. It's another way to let people know who and what you're talking about.
People often update their status to reflect their thoughts and feelings, or to mention things they feel like sharing. Sometimes that includes referencing friends, groups or even events they are attending — for instance, posting "Grabbing lunch with Meredith Chin" or "I'm heading to Starbucks Coffee Company — anyone want some coffee?".
Now, when you are writing a status update and want to add a friend's name to something you are posting, just include the "@" symbol beforehand. As you type the name of what you would like to reference, a drop-down menu will appear that allows you to choose from your list of friends and other connections, including groups, events, applications and Pages. Soon, you'll be able to tag friends from applications as well. The "@" symbol will not be displayed in the published status update or post after you've added your tags.
Friends you tag in your status updates will receive a notification and a Wall post linking them to your post. They also will have the option to remove tags of themselves from your posts. We hope that tagging your status updates and others posts from the Publisher will enable you to share in a more meaningful and engaging way, and connect with even more people. We're rolling this feature out over the course of the next few weeks, so you may not see the new feature just yet.
Tom, a software engineer, is excited to be able to tag Eugene Letuchy in his status.
Even when you're away from your desktop, we want you to be able to share and connect with those that matter to you on Facebook. We had that goal in mind when we launched Facebook Mobile in 2006. Today, we reached a new milestone with more than 65 million people now actively using Facebook on their mobile devices — a significant increase from 20 million just eight months ago.
As we celebrate 65 million, we want you to be able to take Facebook with you wherever you go. That's why we are continuously making updates to our mobile products and working with some of the biggest names in mobile to make sure that Facebook is available on the latest devices and mobile operating systems.
Facebook Mobile first started as a simple mobile site in English with a few of the core site features built in, such as status updates and photo uploads. Since then, we've grown far beyond what was then a fairly basic mobile site. We have translated the mobile site into other languages, launched Facebook SMS and deployed a wide range of applications for hundreds of mobile handsets, including Facebook for Blackberry, Facebook for iPhone and Facebook for Nokia.
Below is a quick tour of all of your options for using Facebook Mobile:
Mobile Web Sites
Facebook has two mobile web sites: m.facebook.com, which works on any mobile browser, and x.facebook.com, which is designed specifically for touch screen phones like Android, Palm, iPhone and Nokia. These sites have been translated into more than 60 languages and allow you to update your status, browse your News Feed and your friends' Profiles, comment or "like" stories, and view or update your Facebook Page.
Text Messages
Through Facebook Mobile Texts, you can receive notifications, set your status and send and receive messages via SMS. This service is now available on 52 operators in 25 countries, on any mobile phone.
Facebook Mobile for Devices
Facebook applications can be found on an increasing number of mobile phones; many come pre-installed while others can be downloaded from the Internet. The most recent Facebook mobile applications include major updates for Apple's iPhone and Nokia's N97 and 5800. These applications make it easier to update your status, share photos, browse your News Feed and keep in contact with all your friends on Facebook wherever you are.
Also available are Facebook applications from INQ, HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola, Palm, RIM, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. There are also Facebook applications for the T-Mobile Sidekick and phones powered by Microsoft's Windows Mobile.
Facebook Connect for Mobile Web
Beginning today, you'll start to see Facebook Connect available on some of your mobile sites and applications, just as you would on the Web. Already, Facebook Connect makes it easier for you to take your online identity with you all over the Web, share what you do online with your friends and stay updated on what they're doing. Soon, you'll see prompts for Facebook Connect on mobile sites and applications and have the opportunity to take your Facebook profile information, friends and privacy preferences to your favorite mobile applications, as well.
If you're a developer and want to build social applications, learn more about Facebook Connect for Mobile Web here.
Whether you want to use an application, the mobile site or SMS, you can always learn more about all Facebook Mobile services here.
Henri and the rest of the mobile team are working on helping you access Facebook on any phone wherever you are.
As we celebrate 65 million, we want you to be able to take Facebook with you wherever you go. That's why we are continuously making updates to our mobile products and working with some of the biggest names in mobile to make sure that Facebook is available on the latest devices and mobile operating systems.
Facebook Mobile first started as a simple mobile site in English with a few of the core site features built in, such as status updates and photo uploads. Since then, we've grown far beyond what was then a fairly basic mobile site. We have translated the mobile site into other languages, launched Facebook SMS and deployed a wide range of applications for hundreds of mobile handsets, including Facebook for Blackberry, Facebook for iPhone and Facebook for Nokia.
Below is a quick tour of all of your options for using Facebook Mobile:
Mobile Web Sites
Facebook has two mobile web sites: m.facebook.com, which works on any mobile browser, and x.facebook.com, which is designed specifically for touch screen phones like Android, Palm, iPhone and Nokia. These sites have been translated into more than 60 languages and allow you to update your status, browse your News Feed and your friends' Profiles, comment or "like" stories, and view or update your Facebook Page.
Text Messages
Through Facebook Mobile Texts, you can receive notifications, set your status and send and receive messages via SMS. This service is now available on 52 operators in 25 countries, on any mobile phone.
Facebook Mobile for Devices
Facebook applications can be found on an increasing number of mobile phones; many come pre-installed while others can be downloaded from the Internet. The most recent Facebook mobile applications include major updates for Apple's iPhone and Nokia's N97 and 5800. These applications make it easier to update your status, share photos, browse your News Feed and keep in contact with all your friends on Facebook wherever you are.
Also available are Facebook applications from INQ, HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola, Palm, RIM, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. There are also Facebook applications for the T-Mobile Sidekick and phones powered by Microsoft's Windows Mobile.
Facebook Connect for Mobile Web
Beginning today, you'll start to see Facebook Connect available on some of your mobile sites and applications, just as you would on the Web. Already, Facebook Connect makes it easier for you to take your online identity with you all over the Web, share what you do online with your friends and stay updated on what they're doing. Soon, you'll see prompts for Facebook Connect on mobile sites and applications and have the opportunity to take your Facebook profile information, friends and privacy preferences to your favorite mobile applications, as well.
If you're a developer and want to build social applications, learn more about Facebook Connect for Mobile Web here.
Whether you want to use an application, the mobile site or SMS, you can always learn more about all Facebook Mobile services here.
Henri and the rest of the mobile team are working on helping you access Facebook on any phone wherever you are.
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 recently had the opportunity to speak with Brian Phillips, a co-founder of Thread, which is one of 24 companies that in the fbFund REV incubator program for startups building Facebook applications and that announced funding today. Read the previous blog post in this series here.
The basis for your company, Thread, is to introduce friends-of-friends on Facebook. How did you come up with the idea?
Personal experience. One of our co-founders, Skye Lee, is a consummate matchmaker. She loves nothing more than to set me up. A typical day: I'll get a phone call from her before we even start thinking about business. "I just found this really cute girl on the street, and she's single. You should take her to coffee next week. I told her all about you." When we started to think about business ideas, it hit us — we should just make it easier to introduce people by applying cool technology like Facebook Connect.
What have you learned with fbFund REV this summer?
First and foremost, the collaboration has been great. We're co-located with 23 other fantastic start-ups with brilliant people behind them, and we're all working on things on the Facebook Platform. If we have a question, problem or challenge, surely someone in the building has had the same question, problem or challenge before.
Secondly, it's been really educational. fbFund REV has a great curriculum with speakers who come to our office almost every other day — whether it be a representative from Facebook or Tim Ferris, author of "The 4-Hour Workweek," and experts in marketing, SEO, public relations or venture capital.
And third, it's just been fun. For instance, every Wednesday afternoon, we have weekly check-ins to talk about what we're working on, and afterwards, the entire group goes out for a beer. We have our own happy hour. There's a great vibe, lots of energy.
Facebook has never focused on dating. What made you think it would be well-suited for an application built on that idea?
We try to take activity that people do off of Facebook and make it easier to do with Facebook. Two-thirds of all marriages are the result of friend introductions. This is how people are actually meeting in the real world. Now, you could actually make that easier. Instead of having to go to 30 dinner parties, I can use Facebook to browse my friends' friends and ask questions about them, instead of meeting every single one of them in person.
How do you think the Internet is changing people's dating patterns or ability to meet new people?
Historically, it started out with slow adoption. There's a good chunk of people who've never been on a dating site or sworn them off. The stigma is going away and people are becoming more comfortable with the idea of using the Internet. At some point, it will be rare for people not to use the Internet in some way for dating. One of our goals is not to have people think of us as a dating site. Thread is a service that just makes what people do offline really easy.
Would you call yourself a matchmaker?
I like to think I'm actually a pretty good matchmaker. I just recently set up two friends of mine. They met through Thread, and they've gone on three dates. I parade around the office high-fiving people about how creative a matchmaker I am. We have a competition going at the office: Who can make the most successful matches? One of our key metrics for success will be actual weddings.
Now, obviously we're a new service, we've only been around for eight weeks or so, but I'm hoping this couple that I've set up will be good candidates for marriage. Let's say this couple is ultimately successful and someone asks them, "How did you guys meet?" Their answer will be, "We met through friends." Not a dating site or Thread, just through friends.
How many people have you set up? What's the track record for your setups?
Probably over a dozen couples. On Thread, you get an opportunity to look at what information people have available through Facebook and learn a little more about them. Instead of a blind email, which I may have used before to set up my friends, people can see a profile photo, what networks they're part of on Facebook and some of their interests.
In the case of my 12 setups, probably a third to half of them went on second dates. You can put anybody on a first date if you're convincing, but if they go on a second date, that's something. That's just me, though. If you're a bad matchmaker offline, Thread isn't necessarily going to make you a better matchmaker. We'll just make it easier.
What sort of criteria do you use on Thread to set people up?
There's no better substitute than your friends' own judgement. The whole premise of our system is that your friends can either make suggestions for you or you can ping your friends and ask them if they think someone would make a good match for you. What's different about our site is that everybody you see, you know through at least one person and sometimes more than one. It's all about friends of friends.
What do you think of the six degrees of separation theory? It's the idea that everyone is, at most, six steps away from knowing any other person.
I buy it. Everyone probably is connected by six degrees. I haven't thought about the math or statistics behind this, but I would suggest that the person you're going to marry is probably not six degrees away. They're most likely one, maybe two, degrees away.
Two degrees away is a huge number of people. On average, people on Facebook have somewhere around 120 friends. If you have 120 friends and they each have 120 friends, that's 14,400 people. And if those 14,400 people each have 120 friends, that's 1,728,000 people.
So, are you single?
I am single. My personal interests and business interests are perfectly aligned. A lot of people think, "Wow, Brian is really interested in meeting girls."
This begs the question, why haven't you found someone by using Thread already?
I've dated more in the last two months than I ever have in my life.
Kathy, Facebook's resident blogger, is checking which of her friends are single and ready to mingle on Thread.
The basis for your company, Thread, is to introduce friends-of-friends on Facebook. How did you come up with the idea?
Personal experience. One of our co-founders, Skye Lee, is a consummate matchmaker. She loves nothing more than to set me up. A typical day: I'll get a phone call from her before we even start thinking about business. "I just found this really cute girl on the street, and she's single. You should take her to coffee next week. I told her all about you." When we started to think about business ideas, it hit us — we should just make it easier to introduce people by applying cool technology like Facebook Connect.
What have you learned with fbFund REV this summer?
First and foremost, the collaboration has been great. We're co-located with 23 other fantastic start-ups with brilliant people behind them, and we're all working on things on the Facebook Platform. If we have a question, problem or challenge, surely someone in the building has had the same question, problem or challenge before.
Secondly, it's been really educational. fbFund REV has a great curriculum with speakers who come to our office almost every other day — whether it be a representative from Facebook or Tim Ferris, author of "The 4-Hour Workweek," and experts in marketing, SEO, public relations or venture capital.
And third, it's just been fun. For instance, every Wednesday afternoon, we have weekly check-ins to talk about what we're working on, and afterwards, the entire group goes out for a beer. We have our own happy hour. There's a great vibe, lots of energy.
Facebook has never focused on dating. What made you think it would be well-suited for an application built on that idea?
We try to take activity that people do off of Facebook and make it easier to do with Facebook. Two-thirds of all marriages are the result of friend introductions. This is how people are actually meeting in the real world. Now, you could actually make that easier. Instead of having to go to 30 dinner parties, I can use Facebook to browse my friends' friends and ask questions about them, instead of meeting every single one of them in person.
How do you think the Internet is changing people's dating patterns or ability to meet new people?
Historically, it started out with slow adoption. There's a good chunk of people who've never been on a dating site or sworn them off. The stigma is going away and people are becoming more comfortable with the idea of using the Internet. At some point, it will be rare for people not to use the Internet in some way for dating. One of our goals is not to have people think of us as a dating site. Thread is a service that just makes what people do offline really easy.
Would you call yourself a matchmaker?
I like to think I'm actually a pretty good matchmaker. I just recently set up two friends of mine. They met through Thread, and they've gone on three dates. I parade around the office high-fiving people about how creative a matchmaker I am. We have a competition going at the office: Who can make the most successful matches? One of our key metrics for success will be actual weddings.
Now, obviously we're a new service, we've only been around for eight weeks or so, but I'm hoping this couple that I've set up will be good candidates for marriage. Let's say this couple is ultimately successful and someone asks them, "How did you guys meet?" Their answer will be, "We met through friends." Not a dating site or Thread, just through friends.
How many people have you set up? What's the track record for your setups?
Probably over a dozen couples. On Thread, you get an opportunity to look at what information people have available through Facebook and learn a little more about them. Instead of a blind email, which I may have used before to set up my friends, people can see a profile photo, what networks they're part of on Facebook and some of their interests.
In the case of my 12 setups, probably a third to half of them went on second dates. You can put anybody on a first date if you're convincing, but if they go on a second date, that's something. That's just me, though. If you're a bad matchmaker offline, Thread isn't necessarily going to make you a better matchmaker. We'll just make it easier.
What sort of criteria do you use on Thread to set people up?
There's no better substitute than your friends' own judgement. The whole premise of our system is that your friends can either make suggestions for you or you can ping your friends and ask them if they think someone would make a good match for you. What's different about our site is that everybody you see, you know through at least one person and sometimes more than one. It's all about friends of friends.
What do you think of the six degrees of separation theory? It's the idea that everyone is, at most, six steps away from knowing any other person.
I buy it. Everyone probably is connected by six degrees. I haven't thought about the math or statistics behind this, but I would suggest that the person you're going to marry is probably not six degrees away. They're most likely one, maybe two, degrees away.
Two degrees away is a huge number of people. On average, people on Facebook have somewhere around 120 friends. If you have 120 friends and they each have 120 friends, that's 14,400 people. And if those 14,400 people each have 120 friends, that's 1,728,000 people.
So, are you single?
I am single. My personal interests and business interests are perfectly aligned. A lot of people think, "Wow, Brian is really interested in meeting girls."
This begs the question, why haven't you found someone by using Thread already?
I've dated more in the last two months than I ever have in my life.
Kathy, Facebook's resident blogger, is checking which of her friends are single and ready to mingle on Thread.
This morning, we announced plans to give you more control over your information and to help you make more informed choices about privacy. We'll be making a series of improvements that include notifications and information about privacy settings and practices, additions to Facebook's privacy policy, and technical changes designed to give people more transparency and control over the information they provide to third-party applications.
These planned changes are a result of collaborative discussions we've had with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, which has spent more than a year reviewing Facebook's privacy policies and controls. You can read more about their announcement here. If you are a developer, you can read more about the potential impact for applications here.
The improvements we announced today are in addition to the tests we began in July of simpler privacy settings and tools for migrating people to the new controls. Those tests continue and we hope to roll them out to more of you in the coming months.
Giving people more control over what information they share and with whom is at the heart of how we think about privacy at Facebook. As people better understand how information is shared and gain more control over it, they become more comfortable and confident in sharing—whether it be photos of a vacation or a status update about how they're feeling today. As we complete these improvements in the coming months, we'll continue to share more details with you.
Tim Sparapani is director of public policy at Facebook.
These planned changes are a result of collaborative discussions we've had with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, which has spent more than a year reviewing Facebook's privacy policies and controls. You can read more about their announcement here. If you are a developer, you can read more about the potential impact for applications here.
The improvements we announced today are in addition to the tests we began in July of simpler privacy settings and tools for migrating people to the new controls. Those tests continue and we hope to roll them out to more of you in the coming months.
Giving people more control over what information they share and with whom is at the heart of how we think about privacy at Facebook. As people better understand how information is shared and gain more control over it, they become more comfortable and confident in sharing—whether it be photos of a vacation or a status update about how they're feeling today. As we complete these improvements in the coming months, we'll continue to share more details with you.
Tim Sparapani is director of public policy at Facebook.
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 on the blog will be informative, remember that we are unable to answer individual questions here. We'll always direct you to the Help Center for additional information about the topics we cover.
Have you ever received a friend request from someone you didn't know or with whom you had second thoughts about being friends, such as the student you never spoke with but sat in front of during class? Luckily, if you want to decline a friend request or remove someone from your Facebook Friend List, you can do so without attracting attention.
When you receive a friend request from people you don't wish to be friends with, you can decline by simply selecting "Ignore." Doing so will remove the request from your Requests list. They will not be notified that their friend request was declined, but they will be able to send you another friend request in the future.
If you take no action on the request they've sent you, they will not be able send you another friend request. You will appear instead as a pending friend request when they view you in Search or elsewhere on the site until you either accept or ignore the request.
You can always remove people as friends by scrolling down to the bottom left side of their Facebook profiles. Select the link "Remove from Friends." Your former friends will not be notified, but they will be removed from your Friend List and you will be reciprocally removed from their list. If you change your mind, you'll have to go through the process of requesting their friendship again.
Xenia, a specialist in Facebook user operations, loves getting friend requests from people she knows in real life.
Have you ever received a friend request from someone you didn't know or with whom you had second thoughts about being friends, such as the student you never spoke with but sat in front of during class? Luckily, if you want to decline a friend request or remove someone from your Facebook Friend List, you can do so without attracting attention.
When you receive a friend request from people you don't wish to be friends with, you can decline by simply selecting "Ignore." Doing so will remove the request from your Requests list. They will not be notified that their friend request was declined, but they will be able to send you another friend request in the future.
If you take no action on the request they've sent you, they will not be able send you another friend request. You will appear instead as a pending friend request when they view you in Search or elsewhere on the site until you either accept or ignore the request.
You can always remove people as friends by scrolling down to the bottom left side of their Facebook profiles. Select the link "Remove from Friends." Your former friends will not be notified, but they will be removed from your Friend List and you will be reciprocally removed from their list. If you change your mind, you'll have to go through the process of requesting their friendship again.
Xenia, a specialist in Facebook user operations, loves getting friend requests from people she knows in real life.
The following is part of our series on different ways Facebook is used across the world. Read the previous blog post in this series here. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please submit it here.
Moving to another country can be a difficult challenge for anyone, but leaving behind one's friends and familiar surroundings is particularly hard as a first-time mother affected by postnatal depression. When faced with this scenario in 2006, Carly Gardiner of the United Kingdom turned to Facebook to draw support from other mothers living around her new home.
Carly had moved from the capital city of Scotland, Edinburgh, to Yeovil, a small town in Somerset, England, located nearly eight hours to the south by car. After connecting with a few local mothers in the area, she began to overcome some of her feelings of loneliness and isolation of being in a new place. Eager to foster relationships with her new friends, Carly created a Facebook group to coordinate informal events with her fellow "Yeovil Mums and Mummies to Be." The fledgling group originally had just six members, but quickly blossomed into a forum of advice and support for more than 227 women.
Today, the group holds a variety of events for mothers and their children in the Yeovil area, including weekly trivia gatherings, live chats, charity events, nights out for mothers and fun days for kids. The success of the original "Mums and Mummies to Be" group has resulted in the creation of two additional groups devoted to specific interest areas — one for diet and exercise, and another that hosts a baby-of-the-month contest.
With millions of mothers like Carly joining Facebook, we continue to be inspired by the ingenious and meaningful ways they foster real-life connections with the people around them
Sara, an intern on the communications team, is sending her mom a message on Facebook.
Moving to another country can be a difficult challenge for anyone, but leaving behind one's friends and familiar surroundings is particularly hard as a first-time mother affected by postnatal depression. When faced with this scenario in 2006, Carly Gardiner of the United Kingdom turned to Facebook to draw support from other mothers living around her new home.
Carly had moved from the capital city of Scotland, Edinburgh, to Yeovil, a small town in Somerset, England, located nearly eight hours to the south by car. After connecting with a few local mothers in the area, she began to overcome some of her feelings of loneliness and isolation of being in a new place. Eager to foster relationships with her new friends, Carly created a Facebook group to coordinate informal events with her fellow "Yeovil Mums and Mummies to Be." The fledgling group originally had just six members, but quickly blossomed into a forum of advice and support for more than 227 women.
Today, the group holds a variety of events for mothers and their children in the Yeovil area, including weekly trivia gatherings, live chats, charity events, nights out for mothers and fun days for kids. The success of the original "Mums and Mummies to Be" group has resulted in the creation of two additional groups devoted to specific interest areas — one for diet and exercise, and another that hosts a baby-of-the-month contest.
With millions of mothers like Carly joining Facebook, we continue to be inspired by the ingenious and meaningful ways they foster real-life connections with the people around them
Sara, an intern on the communications team, is sending her mom a message on Facebook.
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