10/16/2009
S.L.A.M.M.D.
BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO FACEBOOK
A Beginner’s Guide | Antolak, Hung, Noble
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
Attribution..................................................................................................................................4
Wikipeda ................................................................................................................................4
Creative Commons .................................................................................................................5
Website ......................................................................................................................................6
Features .....................................................................................................................................7
Platform .....................................................................................................................................9
Facebook mobile graphical user interface .............................................................................9
iPhone App .............................................................................................................................. 10
Facebook on other devices ................................................................................................. 10
Downtime and outages ........................................................................................................... 11
Reception ................................................................................................................................ 12
Use by courts........................................................................................................................... 13
Criticism .................................................................................................................................. 14
Children under 13 ............................................................................................................... 14
First local cases ................................................................................................................... 14
Banned by governments ..................................................................................................... 14
Africa and Middle East ........................................................................................................ 15
Far east ................................................................................................................................ 15
Beacon..................................................................................................................................... 16
Privacy ..................................................................................................................................... 17
Teen suicide and relationships................................................................................................ 19
Pro-mafia groups' case ............................................................................................................ 20
Phishing ................................................................................................................................... 21
Financials ................................................................................................................................. 22
Publisher ................................................................................................................................. 24
News Feed ............................................................................................................................... 25
Wall ......................................................................................................................................... 26
Photos ..................................................................................................................................... 27
Gifts ......................................................................................................................................... 28
Marketplace ............................................................................................................................ 29
Pokes ....................................................................................................................................... 30
Status ...................................................................................................................................... 31
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Events ...................................................................................................................................... 32
Networks and groups .............................................................................................................. 33
Video ....................................................................................................................................... 34
Chat ......................................................................................................................................... 35
Public Profiles .......................................................................................................................... 36
Easter Eggs .............................................................................................................................. 37
UserNames .............................................................................................................................. 38
Platform applications .............................................................................................................. 39
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Attribution
All the content in this report, except for the Top Web Links section is from Wikipedia, licensed
under the Creative Commons Share-Alike 3.0 Unported License (see below for an overview of both
Wikipedia and the Creative Commons). The following picture shows the full license below (it is also
set up as a hyperlink to the original web source for this license).
Figure 1 – Wikipedia Creative Commons License
(Creative Commons Deed)
Our Contribution
We have attempted to add extra value to the content by structuring it in an easy to read, business
report format and to add an informative “Top Web Links” section. We have also added an index to
help you find what you are looking for. We hope you find it useful and worth the $1 purchase price.
We have prepared this report as part of a MS Word 2007 assignment for BSYS 1000 – Computer
Applications I that we are taking at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). All proceeds
will go to student clubs within the School of Business at BCIT.
Wikipeda
Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based, free-content encyclopedia project based mostly
on anonymous contributions. The name “Wikipedia” is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a
type of collaborative Web site) and encyclopedia. Wikipedia’s articles provide links to
guide the user to related pages with additional information.
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Wikipedia is written collaboratively by an international (and mostly anonymous) group of
volunteers. Anyone with internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia
articles. There are no requirements to provide one’s real name when contributing; rather,
each writer’s privacy is protected unless they choose to reveal their identity themselves.
Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference
web sites, attracting around 65 million visitors monthly as of 2009. There are more than
75,000 active contributors working on more than 14,000,000 articles in more than 260
languages. As of today, there are 3,062,069 articles in English. Every day, hundreds of
thousands of visitors from around the world collectively make tens of thousands of edits
and create thousands of new articles to augment the knowledge held by the Wikipedia
encyclopedia. (See also: Wikipedia:Statistics.)
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of
creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization
has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses. These
licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they
waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.
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Website
Facebook's homepage features a login form on the top right for existing users and a
registration form directly underneath for new visitors.Users can join and create up to 200
groups according to their interests or areas of expertise.[51] It will appear in the search
results of Facebook if the group is on public.[52] Users can choose fan pages according to
their interests to connect and interact with other strangers.[53] Users can set their profiles
on private so as to prevent acquaintances from contacting them. Users can also set their
profiles on public.[54] This allows close friends to send messages and add the user as a
friend. It lets users update their personal profiles to notify their close friends about
themselves. They can also join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to
connect and interact with their close friends.[55] Public profiles also allow any stranger or
acquaintance to contact the user which results in lack of privacy. Public profiles can be
blocked by any user but private profiles cannot.
The website is free to users and generates revenue from advertising including banner
ads.[56] Users can create profiles including photos and lists of personal interests, exchange
private or public messages, and join groups of friends.[57] By default, the viewing of
detailed profile data is restricted to users from the same network and "reasonable
community limitations".[58]
Microsoft is Facebook's exclusive partner for serving banner advertising,[59] and as such
Facebook only serves advertisements that exist in Microsoft's advertisement inventory.
According to comScore, an internet marketing research company, Facebook collects as much
data from its visitors as Google and Microsoft, but considerably less than Yahoo!
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Features
Main article: Facebook features
The media often compare Facebook to MySpace, but one significant difference between the
two websites is the level of customization.[63] MySpace allows users to decorate their
profiles using HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), while Facebook only allows plain
text.[64]
Facebook has a number of features with which users may interact. They include the Wall, a
space on every user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to
see,[65] Pokes, which allows users to send a virtual "poke" to each other (a notification then
tells a user that they have been poked),[66] Photos, where users can upload albums and
photos,[67] and Status, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and
actions.[68] A user's Wall is visible to anyone who is able to see that user's profile,
depending on privacy settings. In July 2007, Facebook began allowing users to post
attachments to the Wall, whereas the Wall was previously limited to textual content
only.[65]
Over time, Facebook has added several new features to its website. On September 6, 2006,
a News Feed was announced, which appears on every user's homepage and highlights
information including profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays of the user's
friends.[69] Initially, the News Feed caused dissatisfaction among Facebook users; some
complained it was too cluttered and full of undesired information, while others were
concerned it made it too easy for other people to track down individual activities (such as
changes in relationship status, events, and conversations with other users).[70] In response
to this dissatisfaction, Zuckerberg issued an apology for the site's failure to include
appropriate customizable privacy features. Since then, users have been able to control what
types of information are shared automatically with friends. Users are now able to prevent
friends from seeing updates about certain types of activities, including profile changes, Wall
posts, and newly added friends.[71]
One of the most popular applications on Facebook is the Photos application, where users
can upload albums and photos.[72] Facebook allows users to upload an unlimited number of
photos, compared with other image hosting services such as Photobucket and Flickr, which
apply limits to the number of photos that a user is allowed to upload. In the past, all users
were limited to 60 photos per album. However, some users report that they are able to
create albums with a new limit of 200 photos. It remains unclear why some members have a
200-photo limit while others do not.[73][74][75] Privacy settings can be set for individual
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albums, limiting the groups of users that can see an album. For example, the privacy of an
album can be set so that only the user's friends can see the album, while the privacy of
another album can be set so that all Facebook users can see it. Another feature of the
Photos applications is the ability to "tag", or label users in a photo. For instance, if a photo
contains a user's friend, then the user can tag the friend in the photo. This sends a
notification to the friend that they have been tagged, and provides them a link to see the
photo.[76]
Facebook Notes was introduced on August 22, 2006, a blogging feature that allowed tags
and embeddable images. Users were later able to import blogs from Xanga, LiveJournal,
Blogger, and other blogging services.[28] During the week of April 7, 2008, Facebook
released a Comet-based[77] instant messaging application called "Chat" to several
networks,[78] which allows users to communicate with friends and is similar in functionality
to desktop-based instant messengers.
Facebook launched Gifts on February 8, 2007, which allows users to send virtual gifts to
their friends that appear on the recipient's profile. Gifts cost $1.00 each to purchase, and a
personalized message can be attached to each gift.[79][80] On May 14, 2007, Facebook
launched Marketplace, which lets users post free classified ads.[81] Marketplace has been
compared to Craigslist by CNET, which points out that the major difference between the two
is that listings posted by a user on Marketplace are only seen by users that are in the same
network as that user, whereas listings posted on Craigslist can be seen by anyone.[82]
On July 20, 2008, Facebook introduced "Facebook Beta", a significant redesign of its user
interface on selected networks. The Mini-Feed and Wall were consolidated, profiles were
separated into tabbed sections, and an effort was made to create a "cleaner" look.[83] After
initially giving users a choice to switch, Facebook began migrating all users to the new
version beginning September, 2008.[84]
On December 11, 2008, it was announced that Facebook is testing out a new simpler signup
process.[85] On June 13, 2009, Facebook introduced a 'usernames' feature, whereby pages
can be linked with simpler URLs such as http://www.facebook.com/facebook, as opposed to
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=20531316728.[86]
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Platform
This article may need to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or
newly available information, and remove this template when finished. Please see the talk
page for more information.
Facebook mobile graphical user interface
Facebook's former headquarters in downtown Palo Alto, CaliforniaFacebook launched the
Facebook Platform on May 24, 2007, providing a framework for software developers to
create applications that interact with core Facebook features.[87][88] A markup language
called Facebook Markup Language was introduced simultaneously; it is used to customize
the "look and feel" of applications that developers create. Using the Platform, Facebook
launched several new applications,[87][88] including Gifts, allowing users to send virtual
gifts to each other, Marketplace, allowing users to post free classified ads, Events, giving
users a method of informing their friends about upcoming events, and Video, letting users
share homemade videos with one another.[89][90]
Applications that have been created on the Platform include chess and Scrabble, which both
allow users to play games with their friends.[91][92] These games are asynchronous,
meaning that a user's moves are saved on the website, allowing the next move to be made
at any time rather than immediately after the previous move.[93]
By November 3, 2007, seven thousand applications had been developed on the Facebook
Platform, with another hundred created every day.[94] By the second annual f8 developers
conference on July 23, 2008, the number of applications had grown to 33,000,[95] and the
number of registered developers had exceeded 400,000.[96]
Within a few months of launching the Facebook Platform, issues arose regarding
"application spam", which involves Facebook applications "spamming" users to request it be
installed.[97] Application spam has been considered one of the possible causes to the drop
in visitors to Facebook starting from the beginning of 2008, when its growth had fallen from
December 2007 to January 2008, its first drop since its launch in 2004.
Facebook Connect was announced for the Xbox 360 and Nintendo DSi on June 1 at E3.[98]
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iPhone App
The Facebook iPhone website was launched August 2007 and as of July 2008 over 1.5 million
people use it regularly.[99] A free application for the iPhone and iPod Touch named
"Facebook for iPhone" was launched July 2008.[99] Version 2.0 of this app was released in
September 2008 and featured improved services such as being able to respond to friend
requests and notifications.[100] Version 3.0 was released in August 2009 and added features
such as events, and uploading video with a iPhone 3GS.[101]
Facebook on other devices
Many new smartphones offer access to the Facebook services either through their webbrowsers or applications. Nokia offers a facebook app on its Ovi Store for Nokia S60 devices
such as the N97 and contains most of the functionality of the full website.[102]
Google's Android OS does not as yet have an official Facebook application due to apparent
disputes between the two companies.[103] However, "wrapper" applications such as fBook
were introduced, although these ran as an enhanced version of the mobile website.[104]
Eventually, some third party applications such as Bloo and Blabber were created. These
supported Facebook natively using the Facebook API.[105]
RIM also offer a Facebook application for their BlackBerry device range. It offers a range of
functions, including an ability to integrate Facebook events into the BlackBerry calendar, and
using Facebook profile pictures for Caller ID.[106]
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Downtime and outages
Facebook has had a number of outages and downtime large enough to draw some media
attention. A 2007 outage resulted in a security hole that enabled some users to read other
users' personal mail.[107] In 2008, the site was inaccessible for about a day, from many
locations in many countries.[108] In spite of these occurrences, a report issued by Pingdom
found that Facebook had less downtime in 2008 than most social networking websites.[109]
On September 16, 2009, Facebook started having major problems with loading when people
signed in. On September 18, 2009, Facebook went down for the second time in 2009, the
first time being when a group of hackers were deliberately trying to drown out a political
speaker who had social networking problems from continuously speaking against the Iranian
election results.[citation needed] In October 2009, an unspecified number of Facebook users
were unable to access their accounts for over a week.[110][111][112][113][114]
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Reception
According to comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly
unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008.[115] ComScore
reports that Facebook attracted 132.1 million unique visitors in June 2008, compared to
MySpace, which attracted 117.6 million.[116]
According to Alexa, the website's ranking among all websites increased from 60th to 7th in
terms of worldwide traffic, from September 2006 to September 2007, and is currently
2nd.[117] Quantcast ranks the website 4th in the U.S. in terms of traffic,[118] and
Compete.com ranks it 2nd in the U.S.[119] The website is the most popular for uploading
photos, with 14 million uploaded daily.[120]
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in several English-speaking countries,
including Canada[121] the United Kingdom,[122] and the United States.[123][124][125][126]
The website has won awards such as placement into the "Top 100 Classic Websites" by PC
Magazine in 2007,[127] and winning the "People's Voice Award" from the Webby Awards in
2008.[128] In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a New Jersey-based company
specializing in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named the
second most popular thing among undergraduates, tied with beer and only ranked lower
than the iPod.[129]
By 2005, the use of Facebook had already become so ubiquitous that the generic verb
"facebooking" had come into use to describe the process of browsing others' profiles or
updating one's own.[130]
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Use by courts
In December 2008, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory ruled that
Facebook is a valid protocol to serve court notices to defendants. It is believed to be the
world's first legal judgement that defines a summons posted on Facebook as legally
binding.[131]
In March 2009, the New Zealand High Court associate justice David Glendall allowed for the
serving of legal papers on Craig Axe by the company Axe Market Garden via Facebook.[132]
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Criticism
Main article: Criticism of Facebook
See also: Use of social network websites in investigations
Facebook has met with some controversy over the past few years.
Children under 13
Facebook does not actively enforce the age limit resulting in children under the age of 13 to
use it.[133] It has raised concerns in regards to the safety of children.[134]
First local cases
In October 2005, the University of New Mexico blocked access to Facebook from its campus
computers and networks.[135] It cited a violation of the university's Acceptable Use Policy
for abusing computer resources as the reason, stating the website forces use of the
university's credentials for activity not related to the university. The school later unblocked
Facebook after the website rectified the situation by displaying a notice on the login page
stating the credentials used on the website are separate from the ones used for their school
accounts.[136] The Ontario government also blocked access to Facebook for its employees
in May 2007, stating the website was "not directly related to the workplace".[137]
On January 1, 2008, a memorial group on Facebook posted the identity of murdered
Toronto teenager Stefanie Rengel, whose family had not yet given the Toronto Police
Service their consent to release her name to the media, as well as the identities of her
accused killers (Melissa Todorovic[138] and D.B.) — despite the fact that under Canada's
Youth Criminal Justice Act, it is illegal to publish the name of an underage criminal.[139]
While police and Facebook staff attempted to comply with the privacy regulations by
deleting posts mentioning her name, they noted it was difficult to effectively police
individual users who repeatedly republished the deleted information.[140]
Banned by governments
Due to the open nature of Facebook, several countries have banned access to it including
Syria,[141] China[7] and Iran.[142]
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Africa and Middle East
The Syrian government cited the ban was on the premise that the website promoted attacks
on authorities.[141][143] The government also feared Israeli infiltration of Syrian social
networks on Facebook.[141] Facebook was also used by Syrian citizens to criticize the
government, and public criticism of the Syrian government is punishable by
imprisonment.[141]
On February 5, 2008, Fouad Mourtada, a citizen of Morocco, was arrested for the alleged
creation of a faked Facebook profile of Prince Moulay Rachid of
Morocco.[144][145][146][147][148][149][150]
In Iran, the website was banned because of fears that opposition movements were being
organized on the website; although access has since been reinstated.[142]
Far east
In China, Facebook was blocked following the July 2009 Ürümqi riots.[7] Huanqi.com had
asserted that "Xinjiang Independence" activists were using Facebook as part of their
communications network.[151]
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Beacon
Main article: Facebook Beacon
Facebook announced Facebook Beacon on November 7, 2007, a marketing initiative that
allows websites to publish a user's activities to their Facebook profile as "Social Ads" and
promote products.[152] When launching Beacon, Facebook stated "no personally
identifiable information is shared with an advertiser in creating a Social Ad", and that
"Facebook users will only see Social Ads to the extent their friends are sharing information
with them."[153] After Facebook was criticized for collecting more user information for
advertisers than was previously stated, Zuckerberg publicly apologized on December 5, 2007
for the way Facebook launched Beacon, saying, "The problem with our initial approach of
making it an opt-out system instead of opt-in was that if someone forgot to decline to share
something, Beacon still went ahead and shared it with their friends."[154][155]
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Privacy
Several concerns have emerged regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance
and data mining.[156] Two MIT students were able to download over 70,000 Facebook
profiles from four schools (MIT, New York University, the University of Oklahoma, and
Harvard University) using an automated shell script, as part of a research project on
Facebook privacy published on December 14, 2005.[157] The possibility of data mining
remains open, as evidenced in May 2008, when the BBC technology program "Click"
demonstrated that personal details of Facebook users and their friends could be stolen by
submitting malicious applications.[158]
Privacy proponents have criticized the site's privacy agreement, which states: "We may use
information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to
newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services, Facebook
Platform developers and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile."[159]
Another clause that received criticism concerned Facebook's right to sell a user's data to
private companies, stating: "We may share your information with third parties, including
responsible companies with which we have a relationship."[160] This concern was
addressed by Facebook spokesman Chris Hughes who said, "Simply put, we have never
provided our users' information to third party companies, nor do we intend to."[161]
Concerns have also been raised regarding the difficulty of deleting user accounts. Previously,
Facebook only allowed users to "deactivate" their accounts so that their profile was no
longer visible. However, any information the user had entered into the website and on their
profile remained on the website's servers. This outraged many users who wished to remove
their accounts permanently, citing reasons such as the inability to erase "embarrassing or
overly-personal online profiles from their student days as they entered the job market, for
fear employers would locate the profiles".[162] Facebook changed its account deletion
policies on February 29, 2008, allowing users to contact the website to request that their
accounts be permanently deleted.[163] On May 7, 2009 it was revealed by the New York
Times that a bug allowed personal e-mail addresses of Facebook users to be easily
accessible. The bug was fixed "within hours of it being reported to us."[164]
In July 2009 it came to light that there are concerns by the Canadian Privacy Commission
that Facebook is breaching several Canadian privacy laws by not deleting a user's
information when their account is deactivated and by giving "confusing or incomplete"
information to subscribers. Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly was quoted as saying
that "[Facebook] was working with the commission to resolve the issues". The CPC have
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given Facebook 30 days before they make a further review and recommendations. If
Facebook do not comply with the Canadian statutes, it is possible that the issue could be
taken to the federal courts.[165]
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Teen suicide and relationships
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England Vincent Nichols placed a warning that
Facebook and other social networking sites may lead teens to commit suicide. Nichols
warned that social networking sites can damage intimate relationships and leave teenagers
without strong social ties.[166]
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Pro-mafia groups' case
In Italy, the discovery of pro-mafia groups[167] caused an alert in the
country[168][169][170] and brought the government, after a short debate,[171] to rapidly
issue a law which will force ISPs to deny access to entire sites in case of refused removal of
illegal contents; the removal can be requested by a prosecutor in any case there is a
suspicion that criminal speech (apology or incitement to crime) is published on a website.
The amendment was passed by the Senate on February 5, 2008, and now needs to be
passed unchanged[172] by the Chamber of Deputies to become immediately effective.
Facebook and other websites, Google included,[173] criticized the amendment emphasizing
the eventual effects on the freedom of speech of those users who do not violate any law.
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Phishing
In May 2009, Facebook users all over the world suffered a massive phishing campaign,
launched by Russian hackers from servers in Latvia and China, that led to thousands of
accounts being hijacked.[174] Facebook was criticized for its late reaction to this issue and
the fact that initially it merely tried to block the attack, rather than notifying users of the
situation.
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Financials
Entrance to Facebook's current headquarters in the Stanford Research Park, Palo Alto,
California
Another view of Facebook's current headquartersFacebook received its first investment of
US$500,000 in June 2004 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.[31] This was followed a year
later by $12.7 million in venture capital from Accel Partners, and then $27.5 million more
from Greylock Partners.[31][32] A leaked cash flow statement showed that during the 2005
fiscal year, Facebook had a net loss of $3.63 million.[33]
With the sale of social networking website MySpace to News Corp on July 19, 2005, rumors
surfaced about the possible sale of Facebook to a larger media company.[34] Zuckerberg
had already said he did not want to sell the company, and denied rumors to the
contrary.[35] On March 28, 2006, BusinessWeek reported that a potential acquisition of
Facebook was under negotiation. Facebook reportedly declined an offer of $750 million
from an unknown bidder, and it was rumored the asking price rose as high as $2 billion.[36]
In September 2006, serious talks between Facebook and Yahoo! took place concerning
acquisition of Facebook, with prices reaching as high as $1 billion.[37] Thiel, by then a board
member of Facebook, indicated that Facebook's internal valuation was around $8 billion
based on their projected revenues of $1 billion by 2015, comparable to Viacom's MTV
brand, a company with a shared target demographic audience.[38]
On July 17, 2007, Zuckerberg said that selling Facebook was unlikely because he wanted to
keep it independent, saying "We're not really looking to sell the company... We're not
looking to IPO anytime soon. It's just not the core focus of the company."[39]
In September 2007, Microsoft approached Facebook, proposing an investment in return for
a 5% stake in the company, offering an estimated $300–500 million.[40] That month, other
companies, including Google, expressed interest in buying a portion of Facebook.[41]
On October 24, 2007 Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook
for $240 million, giving Facebook a total implied value of around $15 billion.[42] However,
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Microsoft bought preferred stock that carried special rights, such as "liquidation
preferences" that meant Microsoft would get paid before common stockholders if the
company is sold. Microsoft's purchase also included rights to place international ads on
Facebook.[43]
In November 2007, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing invested $60 million in Facebook.[44]
In August 2008, BusinessWeek reported that private sales by employees, as well as
purchases by venture capital firms, had and were being done at share prices that put the
company's total valuation at between $3.75 billion and $5 billion.[43]
In October 2008, Zuckerberg said "I don't think social networks can be monetized in the
same way that search did... In three years from now we have to figure out what the
optimum model is. But that is not our primary focus today."[45]
In August 2009 Facebook acquired social media real-time news aggregator FriendFeed,[46] a
startup created by the former Google employee and Gmail's first engineer Paul Buchheit
who, while at Google, coined the phrase "Don't be evil".[47][48][49]
In September 2009, Facebook claimed that it had turned cash flow positive for the first
time.[50]
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Publisher
Publisher is the main feature to post information and messages which appear on the user's
own Wall, on their friend's Walls, as well as the News Feed on the Home page.[1] [2] It
appears at the top of the Home page, Profile Wall page as well as friend's Wall page. For the
user there is a 420 character limit, with a 1000 character limit when posting on a friend's
Wall. In comparison, Twitter has a 140 character limit.
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News Feed
On 6 September 2006, Ruchi Sanghvi announced a new home page feature called News
Feed.[3] Originally, when users logged into Facebook, they were presented with a
customizable version of their own profile. The new layout, by contrast, created an alternate
home page in which users saw a constantly updated list of their friends' Facebook activity.
News Feed highlights information that includes profile changes, upcoming events, and
birthdays, among other updates. News Feed also shows conversations taking place between
the walls of a user's friends. An integral part of the News Feed interface is the Mini-Feed, a
news stream on the user's profile page that shows updates about that user. Unlike in the
News Feed, the user can delete events from the Mini-Feed after they appear so that they
are no longer visible to profile visitors.
Initially, the addition of the News Feed caused some discontent among Facebook users.
Many users complained that the News Feed was too cluttered and full of undesired
information. Others were concerned that the News Feed made it too easy for other people
to track activities like changes in relationship status, events, and conversations with other
users. This tracking is often casually referred to as "Facebook-Stalking".[4] In response to
this dissatisfaction, creator Mark Zuckerberg issued an apology for the site's failure to
include appropriate customizable privacy features. Thereafter, users were able to control
what types of information were shared automatically with friends.[5] Currently, users may
prevent friends from seeing updates about several types of especially private activities,
although other events are not customizable in this way.
With the introduction of the "New Facebook" - a total redesign of the pages and the
implementation of several new features - News Feeds were changed. On their personal
Feeds (now integrated with Walls), users were given the option of removing updates from
any application as well as choosing the size they show up on the page. Furthermore, the
community feed (containing recent actions by the user's friends) contained options to
instantly select whether to hear more or less about certain friends or applications.[6]
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Wall
The Wall is a space on each user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the
user to see while displaying the time and date the message was written. One user's wall is
visible to anyone with the ability to see his or her full profile, and different users' wall posts
show up in an individual's News Feed. Many users use their friends' walls for leaving short,
temporal notes. More private discourse is saved for Messages, which are sent to a person's
inbox, and are visible only to the sender and recipient(s) of the Message, much like email.
In July 2007, Facebook allowed users to post attachments to the wall,[7] whereas previously
the wall was limited to text content only. In May 2008, the Wall-to-Wall for each profile was
limited to only 40 posts.
Page 26 of 40
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
Photos
One of the most popular applications on Facebook is the Photos application, where users
can upload albums of photos, tag friends, and comment on photos. According to
Facebook,[8] there are[when?]
1.7 billion user photos
2.2 billion friends tagged in user photos
160 terabytes of photo storage used with an extra 60 terabytes available
60+ million photos added each week which take up 5 terabytes of disk space
3+ billion photo images served to users every day
100,000+ images served per second during peak traffic windows
[edit] Notes
Facebook Notes was introduced on 22 August 2006, a blogging feature that allowed tags and
embeddable images. Users were later able to import blogs from Xanga, LiveJournal, Blogger,
and other blogging services.[9]
A recent use of Notes includes the Internet meme - "25 Random Things About Me" which
involves writing 25 things about the user that their friends don't already know about them
and using the tag function to ask 25 friends to also do so. Nearly 5 million "25 Random
Things" notes were written on Facebook profiles in the first week of February 2009. [10]
Page 27 of 40
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
Gifts
Some of Facebook's gifts, as displayed in the website's gift shop.In February 2007, Facebook
added a new virtual gift feature to the website. Friends could send gifts - small icons of
novelty items designed by former Apple designer Susan Kare - to each other by selecting one
from Facebook's virtual gift shop and adding a message. Gifts given to a user appear on the
recipient's wall with the giver's message, unless the giver decided to give the gift privately,
in which case the giver's name and message is not displayed to other users. Additionally, all
gifts (including private gifts) received by a user are displayed in the recipient's gift box (right
above their wall on their profile), marked with either the first name of the user (for public
gifts) or the word "Private." An Anonymous option is also available, by which anyone with
profile access can see the gift, but only the recipient sees the message. None will see the
giver's name, and the gift goes in the recipient's gift box but not the wall.
Facebook users are given one free gift to give upon registering their account. Each additional
gift given by a user costs US$1.00. The initial selection of gifts was Valentine's Day themed,
and 50% of the net proceeds (after credit card processing fees were taken out, etc.) received
through February 2007 were donated to the charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure. After the
month of February, the proceeds were no longer donated. Soon after, Facebook began
making one new gift available each day, most of which had a limited supply or were
available for a limited time.
On 8 November 2008, Facebook changed the $1.00 per gift model to a micro-payment
model of 100 points per $1.00, with the existing gifts costing 100 points. They plan to allow a
wider variety of gifts in the future.
With the advent of Applications came a way to subvert the required US$1.00 payment;
however, the gifts in the Free Gifts application, created by Zachary Allia,[11] are not the
same as the official gifts, as they are displayed in a different manner.
Page 28 of 40
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
Marketplace
In May 2007, Facebook introduced the Facebook Marketplace allowing users to post free
classified ads within the following categories: For Sale, Housing, Jobs, and Other. Ads can be
posted in either available or wanted format.[12] The market place is available for all
Facebook users and is currently free.[13]
Page 29 of 40
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
Pokes
The poke feature allows one user to virtually poke another. Some users believe that the
poke feature is some sort of Facebook flirting. However, according to Facebook's FAQ
section on the feature, "a poke is a way to interact with your friends on Facebook. When we
created the poke, we thought it would be cool to have a feature without any specific
purpose. People interpret the poke in many different ways, and we encourage you to come
up with your own meanings." In principle, this is intended to be a "nudge" to attract the
attention of the other user. Hence, most of the Facebook users use this feature to attract
attention or say "hello" to their friends.[14]
There are several applications on Facebook which extend the idea of the poke feature by
allowing users to perform other actions to their friends (such as "kick" or "wave to"). People
often reciprocate pokes back and forth until one side gives up, an event known as a "Poke
War".[citation needed]
Page 30 of 40
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
Status
Facebook has a micro-blogging feature called "status updates" which allows users to inform
their friends of their current whereabouts, actions, or thoughts. For example "Billy visited
Jen," "Sam called Jen," "Matt dated Jen," or "Jen is a total idiot." Facebook originally
prompted the status update with "User name is..." and Facebook users filled in the rest.
However, on December 13, 2007, the requirement to start a status update with "is" was
removed.[15]
Status updates are noted in the "Recently updated" section of a user's friend list. Upon the
recent facelift, the status update question changed from "What are you doing?" to "What's
on your mind?".
In 2009, Facebook added the feature to tag certain friends within your status by adding an
@ character before a friend's name, and it the friend's name will be displayed as a link to
their profile.
Page 31 of 40
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
Events
Facebook events are a way for members to let friends know about upcoming events in their
community and to organize social gatherings.[16] Events require an event name, network,
host name, event type, start and end time, location, and a guest list of friends invited.
Events can be open, closed, or secret. When setting up an event the user can choose to
allow friends to upload photos or videos.
Page 32 of 40
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
Networks and groups
Facebook allows different networks and groups to which many users can join. It also allows
privacy settings on basis of networks. Groups are used for discussions and events etc.
Groups are a way of enabling a number of people to come together online to share
information and discuss specific subjects. They are increasingly used by clubs, companies
and public sector organizations to engage with stakeholders - be they members of the
public, employees, members, service users, shareholders or customers. A group is
comprised of but not limited to the following: the members who have joined, recent news
contents, discussion board contents, wall contents, photos, posted items, videos and all
associated comments of such items.
Page 33 of 40
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
Video
During the time that Facebook released its platform, it also released an application of its
own for sharing videos on Facebook.[17] Users can add their videos with the service by
uploading video, adding video through Facebook Mobile, and using a webcam recording
feature. Additionally, users can "tag" their friends in videos they add much like the way
users can tag their friends in photos, except the location of the friend in the video is not
displayed. Users also have the option of video messaging. The maximum video length is 20
minutes and the maximum size is 1 GB.
Page 34 of 40
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
Chat
On April 5, 2008, Facebook pre-released Facebook Chat.[18][19] As of April 23, 2008,
Facebook Chat was released to the entire Facebook user base. Users are only able to chat
with their Facebook friends and on a one-to-one basis. Instant messaging clients that
currently support Facebook Chat include eBuddy, Flock, Digsby, faceoffIM, Adium, Nimbuzz,
Fim (Windows Mobile), Palringo (Windows Mobile), and Scrapboy, Tokbox with a Firefox
plugin as well as Pidgin with a cross-platform plug-in. Facebook Chat can also be run on the
desktop using Gabtastik, a dedicated web chat browser. On May 13, 2008, a Facebook
developer announced that they are working on XMPP support, allowing hundreds of instant
messaging clients to interoperate with the service.[20]
Page 35 of 40
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
Public Profiles
Individuals or companies can create "Public Profiles" (Formerly known as "Pages") which
allows users to "become a fan" of the individual, product, service, or concept. Public Profiles
look and behave much like a user's personal private profile, with some significant
differences. Public Profiles are integrated with Facebook's advertising system, allowing
Public Profile owners to easily advertise to Facebook's users. Owners can send updates to
their fans, which shows up on their home page. They also have access to insights and
analytics of their fan base.[21]
Page 36 of 40
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
Easter Eggs
Entering the Konami Code followed by Enter at the home page used to cause an odd
reflection of light to occur when clicking, typing, or scrolling.
Users have the option of having Facebook be displayed in "Pirate English" by choosing
"English(Pirate)" from the language selection tab.
It is also possible for users to have Facebook displayed with all the writing upside-down by
choosing "English (Upside Down)" from the language settings tab.
Page 37 of 40
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
UserNames
Starting June 13, 2009, Facebook introduced a feature that allowed users to choose a
Facebook username to make user location easier. The user is able to direct others to their
page through a simple link such as www.facebook.com/username rather than an otherwise
complex URL. This feature on Facebook quickly spread, with more than 1 million users
registering usernames in the first three hours.[22] Usernames are now available to any
existing or newly registered user.
According to the FAQ, Facebook reserves the right to revoke any username at any time for
any reason. [23]
Page 38 of 40
A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook by Antolak, Hung, Noble
Platform applications
On May 24, 2007, Facebook launched the Facebook Platform,[24] which provides a
framework for third party developers to create applications that interact with core Facebook
features. As of January 31, 2008, there are more than 14,000 applications.[25]
Third party websites such as Adonomics, which provides application metrics, and blogs such
as AppRate, Inside Facebook, and Face Reviews have sprung up in response to the clamour
for Facebook applications. On July 4, 2007, Altura Ventures announced the "Altura 1
Facebook Investment Fund," becoming the world's first Facebook-only venture capital
firm.[26]
On August 29, 2007, Facebook changed the way in which the popularity of applications is
measured, to give attention to the more engaging applications, following criticism that
ranking applications only by the number of people who had installed the application was
giving an advantage to the highly viral, yet useless applications.[27] Tech blog Valleywag has
criticized Facebook Applications, labeling them a "cornucopia of uselessness."[28] Others
have called for limiting third-party applications so the Facebook "user experience" is not
degraded.[29][30]
Primarily attempting to create viral applications is a method that has certainly been
employed by numerous Facebook application developers. Stanford University even offered a
class in the Fall of 2007, entitled, Computer Science (CS) 377W: "Create Engaging Web
Applications Using Metrics and Learning on Facebook". Numerous applications created by
the class were highly successful, and ranked amongst the top Facebook applications, with
some achieving over 3.5 million users in a month.[31]
Page 39 of 40
Top Web Source
2008 Growth Puts
Facebook In Better
Position to Make
Money
The Numbers:
Billionaire
Bachelors
China's Facebook
Status: Blocked
Social Networks:
Facebook Takes
Over Top Spot,
Twitter Climbs
Hundreds Register
for New Facebook
Website
Facebook banned
for Ontario staffers
"Facebook: Largest,
Fastest Growing
Social Network
^ New Tool From
Facebook Extends
Its Web Presence
News On Facebook
Facebook Facts
Source
Eldon, Eric. (2008-1218
URL
Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/2008/09/16/billionaire-bachelors-single-listscx_mm_0916bachelor_slide_11.html
". ABC News
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/07/chinas-facebook-status-blocked.html
Kazeniac, Andy
http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/09/facebook-myspace-twitter-social-network/.
Tabak, Alan J
http://web.archive.org/web/20050403215543/www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=357292
Benzie, Robert."
TheStar.com
Techtree News Staff
Techtree.com.
New York Times
NYTimes.com
Facebook
Facebook
^ http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=174
http://facebook.com/facts
http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/18/2008-growth-puts-facebook-in-better-position-to-makemoney