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- Sharing with Small Groups
  by Elliot Lynde on Monday, April 25, 2011 at 12:00pm
  It's always been easy to share with all your friends on Facebook, but until we introduced Groups last October, there wasn't a simple way to share with just a few people. Much of what we share in our daily lives is only meaningful to smaller groups of people, like our family, roommates, or co-workers. With Groups, you can create a private space to share with just those friends.
  
  In the six months since our launch, people have created over 50 million Groups on Facebook. It's grown quickly because of its social design. Instead of making everyone... build and manage individual friend lists, one person can create a group for their families and everyone in the family gets to use it.
  
  We've received some great feedback about how people are using Groups and what new features they would like to see. Today, we're happy to announce some new improvements, including integration with Questions, the ability to upload photo albums, and additional membership controls.
  
  How people are using Groups
  
  People are using Groups to communicate with many of the important communities in their lives, like their families, best friends, and teammates. My own family uses a group to stay connected to each other. As a Californian with a brother living in Peru and parents back in Wisconsin, we use our group to update each other about our lives, share vacation photos, and discuss where we're going to meet up next.
  
  I also have a group with my roommates. Because we have such different schedules, we can go a whole week without seeing each other in person. Our group is where we meet to divide up chores, settle our bills, and make plans for the weekend.
  
  Popular group names among college students 19-22 years old (larger words represent greater popularity).
  
  Popular group names among people 60-75 years old.
  
  New improvements to Groups
  
  You've always been able to post updates to Groups, but now you can post questions and polls for only members to weigh in on. You'll get quick responses to questions like "What movie should we see?" and "When should we should hold our next soccer practice?"
  
  Where before you could only upload individual photos, now you have the option to upload entire albums directly to your group, making it even easier to share your photos with the people who most want to see them.
  
  For group owners, we're also adding a control that lets you approve people before they are added to the group.
  
  For people who were using our older version of Groups, we've created a tool that makes it easy to upgrade to the new Groups format. Owners and members of old Groups will be receiving information about how to upgrade within the coming weeks.
  
  Send button lets you share with Groups
  
  In addition to the other new group features, we're also introducing the Send button.
  
  A year ago, we launched the Like button, which gives you a quick way to share the things you find on the web with all your friends. But there are times when you find something that you only want to share with a few specific people.
  
  Say you're on Orbitz and want to tell your roommates about a great idea for a summer vacation, or you come across a Huffington Post article that you only want to share with people at work. With the new Send button, now you can share things with any of your Groups or individual friends on Facebook.
  
  Starting today, the Send button will be available on over 50 leading websites, and it will appear in more places soon.
  
  Create a Group today
  
  It's been exciting to hear about the many ways people have been using Groups to communicate with the different people in their lives, and we hope you all enjoy the new features, which will be rolling out over the next few days.
  
  Ready to start a new group? Visit www.facebook.com/groups.
  
  Elliot Lynde, an engineer on the Groups team, is currently working on scanning in all his old photos to post in his family group.
  
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- Topics: Groups
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- Making Mobile More Social
  by Erick Tseng on Wednesday, November 3, 2010 at 11:15am
  Life happens in real time, and so should sharing. Today's mobile phones allow people to connect on the go and to share interesting moments as they happen all around them.
  
  Earlier this week, when the Giants won the World Series, revelling baseball fans took to the streets of San Francisco. I immediately grabbed my phone to take pictures and to share them on Facebook. Within minutes, I had friends liking and commenting on my photos--instant gratification from a truly social, mobile experience.
  ...
  
  I'm not alone. Last month, we reached a major milestone: 200 million people around the world are now actively using Facebook from a phone, more than triple the number just one year ago.
  
  Today, we're taking another step forward in enriching your mobile experience with major updates to both our Android and iPhone applications, as well as with the launch of single sign on--a hassle-free way to log in to mobile applications.
  
  Places and Groups for Android
  
  The new Android 1.4 update includes the launch of Places and Groups. With the launch of Places, you and your friends can now check in to your favorite restaurant, museum, business or any other location from your Android phone.
  
  Places on Android.
  
  Following on the heels of our launch of Groups on Facebook.com less than a month ago, you can now access those same groups from your Android phone. Create a group for your poker buddies, and organize an impromptu game this weekend just by messaging the group from your phone.
  
  Groups on Android.
  
  Android 1.4 also includes a refresh to the notifications application, one of the top requests from our users. Clicking on a notification now won't send you off to the browser. Instead, as long as that notification has an appropriate destination within the application itself, you will be taken there.
  
  Find Deals on iPhone
  
  Using Places on the iPhone already lets you share where you are and find nearby friends. Now with the iPhone 3.3 application, you can also find nearby deals from your favorite businesses--from restaurants down the block to major retailers. Deals are only available from Places in the U.S, for now, and we'll be expanding them to more merchants over time. Learn more here about the initial offers from businesses using Facebook Deals.
  
  In addition, Places has been updated to include a starred friends list, making it even faster and easier to tag friends with whom you frequently check-in--no more searching and scrolling.
  
  Starred friends list on iPhone.
  
  iPhone 3.3 also includes the launch of Groups, as well as a new composer to make checking in and posting photos faster and more clear.
  
  Single Sign On
  
  Now when you're logged into Facebook, it's easier for you to log in into other applications on your mobile phone with single sign on. Gone is that tedious annoyance of having to type in your username and password again on a tiny phone keyboard. Gone are those frustrating moments when you forget one of your many username and password variations and can't access an application.
  
  Here's how single sign on works (video): Just log in to the Facebook application on your mobile phone once. From then on, you can log in to any other application on your phone that supports single sign on without typing a username or password again. This works on any Android phone or any iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch device that supports multitasking (most iOS4 devices).
  
  Our goal is to save you time so you can get to what you want to do.
  
  Starting today, you can try this new experience yourself with any of these Android apps: Flixster, Groupon, Loopt, SCVNGR, Yelp and Zynga Poker. iPhone apps will soon be available with single sign on. Going forward, expect even more apps to launch with this functionality.
  
  For so many people, their mobile phone is already the most social device in their lives. It's our hope that single sign on and new updates for Android and iPhone will make the phone even more personal to you, so you can bring your friends with you wherever you may go.
  
  Erick, head of mobile products at Facebook, is freeing up space in his head from all the login passwords he no longer has to remember. 
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- Topics: Places, Mobile, Groups, Deals
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- Giving You More Control
  by Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, October 6, 2010 at 11:13am
  The biggest problem in social networking is helping you easily interact with your friends and share information in lots of different contexts.
  
  For example, you might want to share photos from a family vacation with just your family, send a video from a party to just the people who were there, invite coworkers to an office event, play a game with a few friends, or use a running website with your friends who like jogging.
  ...
  
  We've long heard that people would find Facebook more useful if it were easier to connect with smaller groups of their friends instead of always sharing with everyone they know. For some it's their immediate family and for others it's their fantasy football league, but the common concern is always some variant of, "I'd share this thing, but I don't want to bother 250 people. Or my grandmother. Or my boss."
  
  Until now, Facebook has made it easy to share with all of your friends or with everyone, but there hasn't been a simple way to create and maintain a space for sharing with the small communities of people in your life, like your roommates, classmates, co-workers and family.
  
  We set out to build a solution that could help you map out all of your communities, that would be simple enough that everyone would use it and that would be deeply integrated across Facebook and applications so you can communicate with your different groups in lots of different ways.
  
  We approached this problem as primarily a social one. Rather than asking all of you to classify how you know all of your friends, or programming machines to guess which sets of people are likely cohorts, we're offering something that's as simple as inviting your best friends over for dinner. And we think it will change the way you use Facebook and the web.
  
  Today we're announcing a completely overhauled, brand new version of Groups. It's a simple way to stay up to date with small groups of your friends and to share things with only them in a private space. The default setting is Closed, which means only members see what's going on in a group.
  
  From this space, you can quickly post photos, make plans and keep up with ongoing conversations. You can also group chat with members who are online right now. You can even use each group as an email list to quickly share things when you're not on Facebook. The net effect is your whole experience is organized around spaces of the people you care most about.
  
  I'm also excited to share a couple of other new things we've been working on that will give you more control and make it easier to stay connected no matter what you're trying to do.
  
  First, we've built an easy way to quickly download to your computer everything you've ever posted on Facebook and all your correspondences with friends: your messages, Wall posts, photos, status updates and profile information.
  
  If you want a copy of the information you've put on Facebook for any reason, you can click a link and easily get a copy of all of it in a single download. To protect your information, this feature is only available after confirming your password and answering appropriate security questions. We'll begin rolling out this feature to people later today, and you'll find it under your account settings.
  
  Second, we're launching a new dashboard to give you visibility into how applications use your data to personalize your experience. As you start having more social and personalized experiences across the web, it's important that you can verify exactly how other sites are using your information to make your experience better.
  
  As this rolls out, in your Facebook privacy settings, you will have a single view of all the applications you've authorized and what data they use. You can also see in detail when they last accessed your data. You can change the settings for an application to make less information available to it, or you can even remove it completely.
  
  We've heard loud and clear that you want more control over what you share on Facebook—to manage exactly who sees it and to understand exactly where it goes. With this new Groups experience and the other tools we're rolling out today, we're taking a few important steps forward towards giving you precise controls. We hope these tools bring you more confidence as you share things on Facebook, and that your experience grows richer and more real as a result.
  
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- Topics: Platform, Groups, Control
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- Town Bands Together on Facebook for Fire Relief
  by Oscar Raymundo on Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 10:21am
  The following is part of our "Your Stories" series on different ways Facebook is used across the world. Submit your story to us and we'll consider featuring it in future posts.
  
  At 6:30 in the morning on April 24, Jeremy Graber awoke to the sound of sirens and the smell of smoke engulfing his neighborhood in Canal Fulton, Ohio. As soon as he stepped out of his home, half the roof was ablaze at the nearby 20-unit apartment complex (video).
  
  ...Fire, police and the Red Cross quickly responded to the scene to make sure all of the residents were evacuated safely. Everyone escaped, except two pet hamsters and a pet turtle.
  Jeremy, Margarita and Ken (left to right)
  
  As he stood witnessing the evacuation, Jeremy logged on to Facebook through his mobile phone and messaged Ken and Margarita Roberts to figure out how they could help the fire victims. The Roberts are the owners of New2MeToday, a resale shop that coordinates the local youth community outreach program REACH and is housed in a four-story historic warehouse complete with a banquet hall.
  
  "I am an amateur ham radio operator so I'm somewhat familiar with disaster and emergency response" Jeremy said. "But I had never done anything like this before. Nobody had."
  
  Before the smoke had cleared, Jeremy began posting about the fire on a Facebook group for Canal Fulton, requesting that clothing and furniture for fire victims be dropped off at New2MeToday. His call turned into an outpouring of help across the community.
  
  Concerned neighbors and townspeople immediately began calling in and bringing in donations. Local volunteers began sorting through the bags and boxes filling up the banquet hall at New2MeToday as Margarita jotted down the names and numbers of the victims and what they needed.
  
  At around 11 a.m. that same day, Pastor Dave Derry from True Life Community Church visited the apartment complex and learned that the fire had mostly displaced families with babies and young children. The fire happened so quickly and so early in the morning that the victims left all of their belongings behind. Using the church's community fund, he bought baby bottles, formula, diapers and baby wipes.
  
  Some of the victims were elderly and didn't drive, while others had their car keys scorched in the fire. So Pastor Derry also started shuttling them to New2MeToday so they could get clothing.
  
  On that windy, rainy Saturday morning, Ken recalled, "we had people coming in to the shop with no jackets and wet socks."
  
  Jeremy kept updating the Facebook group with how neighbors could help the fire victims. As word spread quickly, local business owners banded together and offered assistance. The family-owned Pizza Parlor delivered free pizza, soda and water for the volunteers sorting donations at New2MeToday. The manager of the First Merit Bank, also a REACH adviser, set up an account for cash donations for the victims.
  
  Days after the fire, Jeremy noticed a need to find the displaced families more permanent housing beyond the three-day hotel stays the Red Cross was providing.
  
  "This apartment complex was subsidized," Jeremy said. "Nobody had renters insurance and nobody really had any means to replace what was lost."
  
  A local campground, Clays' Park Resort, responded by offering three cabins to house the victims until Labor Day.
  
  Shortly before 3 p.m. the day of the fire, Jeremy, Ken and Margarita began planning a benefit dinner, raffle and silent auction to help out the victims. On May 8, exactly two weeks after the fire, the benefit, held at New2MeToday's banquet hall, helped raise $4,200 for the 13 families that had lost their homes. The benefit went so far beyond their initial expectations that they ended up providing assistance to an additional 72 local families.
  
  Jeremy never thought he would end up using Facebook as emergency response, but it provided "basically flawless coordination having my friends and business networks all in place." By its end, the community effort spawned from a Facebook post even spread across state boundaries.
  
  "I got a call from someone in Michigan who had heard about what had happened through Facebook," Ken said. "They wanted to help, but they didn't know where Canal Fulton, Ohio, was."
  
  Oscar, a San Francisco-based freelance writer and contributor to the Facebook Blog, feels bad for those families who lost a pet hamster in a fire.
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- Topics: Groups, Your Stories
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- Love Thy Neighbor on Facebook
  by Sara Lannin on Friday, April 2, 2010 at 11:34am
  Meeting the new neighbors no longer requires a Welcome Wagon. Neighbors instead are turning to Facebook to build a greater sense of community online to complement the traditional block parties and neighborly door knocking. Current residents find that they can more quickly share are information, news and events with one another, while former neighbors can reminisce and keep roots in their former communities.
  
  A Neighborhood Reunion
  
  ...In April of 2009, while visiting her 24-year-old son in San Diego, Janet Pampuro was surprised to run into an old acquaintance from high school in Salinas, Calif. He told her about the friends he'd reconnected with on Facebook, and insisted she "really needed to get on." Intrigued, Janet enlisted her son's help to set up an account.
  
  Janet immediately began finding friends from high school, but she was more amazed to discover some of her former neighbors—the playmates she'd shared many of her childhood memories with while growing up on Bruce Avenue in Salinas.
  
  "By 1966 some key players on the block began to move away", explained Janet, who now lives about 20 miles away from the neighborhood. "I stayed in touch with a few people but didn't know where a lot of them were when I joined Facebook."
  
  A friend of Janet's from the neighborhood, Patty, created a group "Friends of Bruce Avenue, Salinas, California!" for the old friends to share memories. It wasn't long before many of the former neighbors decided a reunion was necessary. The group used Facebook to coordinate a date, time and location. While a few people still lived near the neighborhood, others traveled from as far away as Phoenix or Sacramento to see each other.
  
  Janet hosted the Bruce Avenue reunion in August at her father's house, only a few months after she had joined Facebook. "We were all much older but the same old wise guys with each other," Janet said.
  
  Together, the old friends and playmates walked the neighborhood, pausing to take photos in front of their former homes, reminisce about significant landmarks, and talk with the street's current residents. "We are all back together again and still communicating on Facebook on a regular basis," Janet said.
  
  Talking Garbage and Lost Pets
  
  The Hillcrest neighborhood encompasses a small, historic area within Little Rock, Ark. For the area's lucky inhabitants, the "I Love Hillcrest" Facebook Page provides a resource with a clear purpose, stating, "This page is for Fans of Hillcrest to keep up with what's happening in the neighborhood, post photos of the 'hood, and post discussions of the good ol' days or talk about current events." With nearly 2,500 fans, the Page has so far been a resounding success.
  
  Fans of the page frequently post on the Wall to share a wide variety of news with their neighbors, ranging from upcoming community events to the adjusted holiday garbage collection schedule. The page has become a particularly great resource among owners searching for lost pets, with at least one dog reunited as a direct result of a photo uploaded and shared to the Page.
  
  Remember When...
  
  The town of Scottsville is a small historic village in upstate New York, just south of Rochester. For those residents who love their home, or the former residents who wish to reminisce about the past, the group "You know you are from SCOTTSVILLE, NY when:" helps them to connect and share stories about all things unique to Scottsville.
  Band photo from Scottsdale group.
  
  The 722 members of the group primarily share anecdotes and memories on the Wall—often in a format that fills in the the rest of the sentence prompted by of the group's title. According to group member and Facebook employee, David Swain, who grew up in Scottsville but now lives in California, "It's been really interesting and special to see people from several generations coming together to share memories and post photos."
  
  David was particularly entertained when he noticed someone had posted a photo of a high school band from the early 1960's. Below the photo, several people had started commenting and mentioned a different band that came a few years later—The Riot Squad. "That was my dad's band," explained David, "it was pretty cool for me to see their name 40 years later, as I've never heard anyone mention the band other than relatives!"
  
  Sara, an intern on Facebook's communications team, is reconnecting with her former neighbors in Edina, Minnesota.
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- Topics: Pages, Groups
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- Facebook Tips: What’s the Difference between a Facebook Page and Group?
  by Nick Pineda on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 1:40pm
  The following is part of our series, Facebook Tips, which answers some of the most commonly asked questions about using Facebook. While we hope the tips we share will be informative, we are unable to answer individual questions on this blog. Visit the Help Center for additional information about any topics we cover.
  
  Making connections on Facebook is not limited to friends. Through both Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups, you can stay more connected with everything that matters in your life—from businesses and public figures to common interests... and hobbies.
  
  To forge these ties on Facebook, it's important to understand the difference between Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups.
  
  Facebook Pages
  
  Like a friend's profile, Facebook Pages enable public figures, businesses, organizations and other entities to create an authentic and public presence on Facebook. Unlike your profile, Facebook Pages are visible to everyone on the internet by default. You, and every person on Facebook, can connect with these Pages by becoming a fan and then receive their updates in your News Feed and interact with them.
  
  Authenticity is at the core of Facebook. Just as profiles should represent real people and real names, so too should Pages for entities. Only the official representatives of a public figure, business or organization should create a Facebook Page.
  
  For example, I am an avid watcher of the American TV show "Lost" on ABC. By connecting with the official Facebook Page for "Lost", I can keep up on the latest episodes and other information directly from the people behind it.
  The official "Lost" Facebook Page.
  
  We have a team at Facebook that is focused on verifying the authenticity of Pages on the site. If an official representative or user identifies a fake, spammy or abusive Page, we will investigate and determine whether to remove these Pages at their request. Remember that you can always remove yourself as a fan of any Page by clicking the "Remove Me from Fans" link in the bottom left corner of the Page.
  
  Facebook Groups
  
  While Pages were designed to be the official profiles for entities, such as celebrities, brands or businesses, Facebook Groups are the place for small group communication and for people to share their common interests and express their opinion. Groups allow people to come together around a common cause, issue or activity to organize, express objectives, discuss issues, post photos and share related content.
  
  When you create a group, you can decide whether to make it publicly available for anyone to join, require administrator approval for members to join or keep it private and by invitation only. Like with Pages, new posts by a group are included in the News Feeds of its members and members can interact and share with one another from the group.
  
  Groups range widely, from members of a church group or athletic team organizing activities to serious topics on politics and world events or even more lighthearted themes.
  
  Say that you and your friends have a favorite celebrity or cause you want to rally around, but you are not the official representative of either. You can either become a fan of the official Facebook page for the celebrity or cause and show your support there or create your own group on Facebook around the common interest.
  
  For example, just as I'm a fan of the official Page for the show "Lost," I am also a member of groups created by other fans like myself. The "Lost" groups offer a way to interact with a community of people and discuss the latest theories around what is happening on the show—from what the "smoke monster is" to how it will all end.
  A "Lost" Facebook Group created by a fan.
  
  Together, Pages and Groups bring even more ways for you to stay connected on Facebook. You can help us by reporting any fake Pages you come across or abusive Groups you come across. Simply click the "Report" links located in the bottom left corner.
  
  Nick, an associate in Facebook user operations, is excited to see how "Lost" will end.
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- Topics: Groups, Pages, Facebook Tips
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- Connections of Strangers Returns Camera to Owner
  by Sara Lannin on Friday, January 22, 2010 at 12:58pm
  The following is part of our series on different ways Facebook is used across the world. You can read previous posts in this series here. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please submit it here.
  
  Nobody likes to lose a valuable item—be it a wedding ring down the disposal or a pair of shoes forgotten under a hotel bed. Even more frustrating, though, is the loss of a camera: Not only is the object itself gone, but so too are the irreplaceable memories captured on it.
  
  ...Knowing that frustration, Danny Cameron set out on a quest through Facebook to find the owner of a lost camera he found along the side of the road while vacationing on the Greek island of Mykonos last summer.
  
  "In theory, with six degrees of separation, the whole world can be reached," said Danny, of Sydney, Australia. "I decided to see whether the world of online resources could track down the owner."
  
  With that goal in mind, Danny started the Facebook group "Needle in a haystack". He uploaded photos from the camera to the group, with the hope that members would recognize someone they know among the strangers.
  
  The group, which started on Oct. 17, grew virally as members faithfully invited others and posted notes of encouragement and thanks to one another for their attempted good deed. Within two weeks, the group ballooned to 235,000 people strong.
  
  On the morning of Nov. 3, Danny received a Facebook message with astonishing news—his social experiment had worked. Some of the people in the photos recognized themselves, explaining that they were tourists who had been in Mykonos the day before Danny. The camera's owner, they revealed, was a woman living on the coast of France. Amazed at the human chain that had been created to find her, the woman was ecstatic to retrieve her missing item.
  
  As for Danny, the success of his campaign led to a newfound respect for the power of social connections and human kindness.
  
  "My simple act found that it is possible to be a noncommercial, nondenominational person just performing a random act of kindness, and I was happy to find (nearly) 250,000 other people who shared that philosophy," he remarked. "If the whole online community could be optimistic, full of hope and good will, then the possibilities for our capabilities would know no bounds."
  
  Sara, an intern on Facebook's communications team, is keeping her camera close while skiing in Lake Tahoe
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- Topics: Your Stories, Groups
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- Giving Groups a Stronger Voice
  by Knot Pipatsrisawat on Monday, October 19, 2009 at 1:17pm
  Facebook Groups have long been a part of the Facebook experience as a way for people to organize and discuss particular issues of interest. However, until now, Group activities have been isolated to the group page and it was often difficult to find out what currently was going on within a group. We have received feedback from many of you saying that you want to know more about what is going on within your Facebook Groups, in the same way you know what is happening with your friends and other connections on the site — on your home page.
  
  ...Starting today, we're transforming Groups to make it easier for you to communicate with other members and create a smoother experience as you browse through Facebook. If you don't see the new design just yet, you will soon. We're currently testing it with a small percentage of people on the site and will roll it out to everyone in the coming days.
  
  First, we revamped the design for Groups so that they look similar to other parts of the site such as profiles and Pages. This means that groups will now have a Wall that summarizes all the recent activities of people within the group and a Publisher that enables members to share their content.
  
  Second, group activities, which previously only appeared in the group, will now be delivered to your News Feed. To ensure that you get the most interesting and relevant content from groups you've joined, you only will see stories when one of your friends posts within a group rather than when all members post. For example, you now will see a story when your friend uploads photos from a recent party at your high school alumni group or when one of your friends posts a message on the Wall of your pick-up soccer group saying that there is a special game this week.
  
  Interacting with Groups will become easier since you can follow the links to the content directly from the News Feed stories or make comments on these stories directly from your home page. You can choose to see only group-related stories on your home page by sorting by Groups from the filters on the left-hand side.
  
  Keep in mind that while Groups and Pages now look the same, they still serve different purposes. Groups are for fostering member-to-member collaboration, while Pages remain the best way to broadcast messages to your fans if you are a business, organization, public figure or other entity.
  
  You can form a Facebook Group around any community you're connected to in your real life: book clubs, sports teams, churches, whatever you want. To date, there are over 45 million groups on the site. If you aren't a member of a group yet, search for one to join or start your own.
  
  Knot, a software engineering intern, is reading about his friends' group activities from his News Feed.
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- Topics: Pages, News Feed, Groups
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- 'Mums and Mummies to Be' Forge New Connections
  by Sara Lannin on Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 4:36pm
  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.
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- Topics: Your Stories, Parents, Groups
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- Freundschaften trotz Hindernissen wiederhergestellt / Friendships Reconnected Despite Boundaries
  by Sara Lannin on Wednesday, July 29, 2009 at 11:54am
  Der folgende Text ist Teil unserer Serie über die weltweit unterschiedliche Nutzung von Facebook. Du kannst die vorhergegangenen Blogeinträge dieser Serie hier lesen. Solltest du eine Geschichte kennen, die du uns gerne mitteilen möchtest, dann reiche sie bitte hier ein.
  
  Vor fast einem Jahrzehnt erhielt der deutsche Student Helmut Müller ein Stipendium von dem europäischen Austauschprogramm ERASMUS („European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students"). Das Stipendium ermöglichte ihm ein Studium an der University of Northern... Belfast in Irland, wo er schnell mit einer kleinen Gruppe von Studenten aus aller Welt neue Freundschaften schloss. Diese Studenten kamen aus den USA, Mexiko, Griechenland, Italien, Spanien und Pakistan.
  
  Zusammen haben sie die irische Landschaft erkundet und eine Begeisterung für die regionale Kultur entwickelt. Traurigerweise musste sich Helmut am Ende des Programms von seinen neuen Freunden verabschieden. Angesichts der Schwierigkeit über die weiten Entfernungen hinweg mit seinen neuen Freunden in Kontakt zu bleiben, fühlte er sich entmutigt. „Manche Leute sind einfach zu beschäftigt, um lange E-Mails zu schreiben", erklärte Helmut.
  
  Im November 2008 sah sich Helmut die Fotos von seiner Zeit in Irland an und fragte sich, was aus seinen ehemaligen Kommilitonen geworden war. Plötzlich von Nostalgie ergriffen, erstellte er eine private Facebook-Gruppe mit dem Namen „Northern Ireland UoU 2000" in der Hoffnung dadurch einige seiner Freunde wiederzufinden.
  
  Er fragte sich, wie gut die Chancen waren, ein paar der ehemaligen Studenten aus über sieben unterschiedlichen Ländern ausfindig zu machen.
  
  Zu seiner Überraschung traten mehrere seiner Freunde der Gruppe nahezu umgehend bei. Viele der anderen Personen erfuhren ebenfalls bald von dieser. Heute hat die Gruppe 12 Mitglieder. Diese nutzen Facebook, um regelmäßig Fotos, Videos und andere Erinnerungen von ihrer Zeit in Irland sowie Aktualisierungen und Geschichten über ihre aktuellen Abenteuer miteinander zu teilen. Helmut hat zum Beispiel alte Fotos, wie die Folgenden, von ihren Streifzügen durch Irland mit seinen Freunden geteilt. Zu den irischen Abenteuern der Gruppe gehörten unter anderem Wanderungen und spontane Straßenauftritte.
  
  Helmut hofft sogar, ein Wiedersehen in Irland organisieren und damit zeigen zu können, dass geografische Grenzen für das Aufrechterhalten lebenslanger Freundschaften kein Hindernis mehr darstellen.
  
  Sara, eine Praktikantin im Kommunikationsteam von Facebook, markiert ihre Schulfreunde auf alten Fotos.
  
  ---
  
  Friendships Reconnected Despite Boundaries
  
  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 also have a story you'd like to share with us, please submit it here.
  
  Nearly a decade ago, Helmut Müller, a German student, was awarded a scholarship from the European student exchange program ERASMUS, or European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students. The scholarship allowed him to study at the University of Northern Belfast in Ireland, where he became fast friends with a small group of students from around the world—from the U.S. and Mexico to Greece, Italy, Spain and Pakistan.
  
  Together, they explored the Irish countryside and developed a love for the local culture, but sadly, at the end of the program Helmut parted ways with his new friends. He felt discouraged by the difficulty of staying in touch with the distances that separated them. "People are just too busy to send lengthy emails," Helmut explained.
  
  In November 2008, Helmut found himself thumbing through photographs of his time in Ireland wondering about his former classmates. Struck with nostalgia, he created a private Facebook group, named "Northern Ireland UoU 2000," hoping he could rediscover a few of his long lost friends.
  
  What were the chances, he wondered, that he could locate a small group of individuals from over seven different countries?
  
  To his surprise, several of his friends almost immediately joined and news soon spread to most of the others. Today, with 12 members, the group uses Facebook to regularly share photos, videos and memories with one another about their time in Ireland, as well as updates and stories about their current adventures. For example, Helmut shared old photos like the ones below of the group's escapades throughout Ireland, including hiking trips and impromptu street performances.
  
  Helmut is even hoping to coordinate a reunion in Ireland, proving that geographic boundaries are no longer a barrier to maintaining friendships for life.
  
  Sara, an intern on the Facebook communications team, is tagging high school friends in old photos.
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- Topics: Your Stories, Groups
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- Look Who's Talking Now
  by Kari Lee on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 at 7:26pm
  Today, we're beginning to test new versions of Facebook Search with a small group — just a fraction of a percent of the people on Facebook. Those of you in the test group will be able to find content from the people, organizations and public figures that matter to you as soon as they share it on Facebook. Testing potential features is an important part of our product development process. These tests tell us if new features benefit people in the way we think they will, what we might do to make them even better, and in some instances, when we... need to go back to the drawing board.
  
  Those of you in the test group will see new layouts for search results that will continue to include people's profiles, Facebook Pages, groups and applications, and some entirely new Search features. With the test, you will be able to search your News Feed for the most recent status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you're a fan. You will also be able to search for status updates, posted links and notes in Search from people who have chosen to make their profile and content available to everyone. As always, you can control what content you're sharing by editing your privacy settings here.
  
  The people around us are a powerful source for finding information about new and interesting information — from the latest on last night's episode of "The Office" and suggestions on what to do for your next vacation to current events.
  
  I'm interested in the latest updates on the aftermath of the Iranian election. By entering the term "Iran" in the "Search" field in the upper-right corner of any page on Facebook, I will see up-to-the-minute results from my friends and the Facebook Pages of which I'm a fan, not to mention people who have chosen to make their profile and content available to everyone. I'm able to discover what blogs and news sources my friends are following, what my friends are saying about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and how people in general are reacting to the election results.
  
  In the coming weeks, as we learn more from the different test versions of Search, we'll keep making improvements and may expand the test to more people.
  
  Kari, an engineer, is ready, set, start your Facebook Search engines.
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- Topics: Applications, Groups, Pages, News Feed, Search
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- Overcoming Autism to Build Friendships
  by Barbara Fischkin on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 2:51pm
  Barbara Fischkin is a parent of a young adult who suffers from severe autism — a neuro-biological disorder that affects one's ability to communicate. She has written extensively about her experiences with her son, Daniel Mulvaney. We've asked her to share their experiences communicating through Facebook as part of our recognition of Autism Awareness Month in the United States.
  
  As parents of a young adult who suffers from severe autism, my husband and I have wrestled with many questions over the years ranging from the practical and the medical to... the philosophical. Our son, Dan, is 21, but he's not an average 21-year-old. For one, he's never had a girlfriend. He stopped speaking as a small child and sometimes he has trouble sitting still or keeping his hands off delicate objects when his senses are overloaded by his surroundings. In some instances, he even struggles to demonstrate to other people that he understands what they are saying to him.
  
  Sometimes, though, the questions my husband and I ask one another about Dan are just downright funny, and thank goodness for that. Those questions tickle us on days when humor is what we need most. Earlier this year, we had one of those funny Dan questions when I asked my husband, Jim, "Do you think Danny would like to be friends with a beautiful 55-year-old showgirl?"
  
  After giving me a look, Jim, who is 54, responded, "Don't I get first dibs?"
  
  "She keeps her clothes on," I said.
  
  "Too bad," my husband replied, still grinning.
  
  "She wants to be his Facebook friend," I emphasized.
  
  That is how, earlier this year, a Facebook friendship began between my son Daniel Mulvaney and a terrific woman with an even better name, Chou Chou Scantlin.
  
  Chou Chou is far more than a showgirl, but rather a powerhouse of a singer and a former Shakespearean actress. She and her husband are the creative forces behind a nationally known costumed revue that resembles the nightclub acts of yore, Doc Scantlin and his Imperial Palms Orchestra. For years, Chou Chou has also been struggling — mostly in private — with a high functioning form of the very same autism that Dan has been living with since he was 3 1/2 years old.
  
  As part of a lifelong quest to understand what troubles her, Chou Chou one day searched for "facebook for autistics" and found a blog I had written about Dan. It mentioned that he had joined Facebook and that the combination of text and photographs, representing many people he already knew, seemed to make it easier for him to focus and communicate, even without speech.
  
  Chou Chou, who can perform, in part, because she sees light instead of the beloved members of her audiences, wrote to me about her own similar reaction:
  
  "In a social situation, or just being out in the world, there is much torturous confusion. E-mailing is faceless but not in a good or inviting way. It is like talking to someone who's in a dark cave. The phone is no good, because, well, the expressions seem all wrong on both ends. Then came Facebook. I can see [my friends'] faces, which I adore, but there is no getting overwhelmed or confused by their expressions, movements, voices or idiosyncrasies. It is so simple and light and charming, and since people take the time to connect it takes away any fear that you are bothering them. As I read the postings on the other walls, the mystery of socializing unfolds to me in a way I have never understood."
  
  Dan, who clicks to make friends on his own but needs help with his motor functions to get his fingers to the letters he wants, has expressed similar thoughts in his own way, writing on his Facebook profile: "i lik e p eople but u really need understand autism i dont show a lot but i feel much and want many many friends."
  
  When Dan joined Facebook last year, he and I both found he responded better to Facebook than to any other communication-typing program, even those put out by educational scholars. It works for Dan, much as it does for Chou Chou. No other program combines photos, the option for brevity but brevity with warmth that this one does. Dan now has 149 Facebook friends all over the world, many of whom were his counselors at a wonderful sleep-away camp for individuals with disabilities. His counselors often post pictures of Dan's happiest moments there, more of which he expects to have this summer. Those photographs really cheer him up through the winter doldrums.
  
  He is also one of 19 members of a Facebook group for individuals with autism who type with more articulation than they speak. The group is just getting started, but already there have been short discussions about the rigors of typing instead of talking, music preferences and, thanks to Dan, a very tentative question about making friends with the opposite sex. Dan is still waiting for someone else in the group to respond to that question. As many of us know, waiting for a response is part of Facebook — and friendship, too.
  
  Barbara is toasting Chou Chou and Dan's 148 other Facebook friends.
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- Topics: Groups, Guest blog
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