New Safety Tools Launch

New Safety Tools Launch

Sharing with Small Groups

Sharing with Small Groups

Questions: Wisdom of Friends

Questions: Wisdom of Friends

    • by Justin Shaffer on Friday, August 26, 2011 at 2:20pm

      With over 250 million photos uploaded each day, sharing pictures is one of the most popular activities on Facebook.  We are constantly working on making Facebook Photos better and today we're introducing some improvements to the way you experience photos.

       

      Bigger Photos, Faster Loading

       

      Now, the photos you share on Facebook are bigger (720 pixels to 960 pixels) and load twice as fast, giving you quicker access to more detailed images.  Photos you've already uploaded to your profile will also be displayed at this higher resolution.  

      ...

       

       

      Focus on the Photo

       

      After we launched the first version of the photo viewer earlier this year, we received feedback from many of you and have made changes based on it.  Today, we are rolling out a more streamlined photo viewer that features a cleaner interface that makes it even easier to enjoy your photos. The light box is now set against a simple white background that puts more of the focus on the photo, and less on the surrounding frame.

       

       

      These new features will be gradually rolling out to everyone over the next few days.


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    • by Chris Cox on Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 11:00am

      Today we're announcing a bunch of improvements that make it easier to share posts, photos, tags and other content with exactly the people you want. You have told us that "who can see this?" could be clearer across Facebook, so we have made changes to make this more visual and straightforward. The main change is moving most of your controls from a settings page to being inline, right next to the posts, photos and tags they affect. Plus there are several other updates here that will make it easier to understand who can see your stuff (or... your friends') in any context. Here's what's coming up, organized around two areas: what shows up on your profile, and what happens when you share something new.

       

      On Your Profile

       

      Your profile should feel like your home on the web - you should never feel like stuff appears there that you don't want, and you should never wonder who sees what's there. The profile is getting some new tools that give you clearer, more consistent controls over how photos and posts get added to it, and who can see everything that lives there.

       

      Inline Profile Controls

       

      Before: Most of the settings for stuff on your profile were a few clicks away on a series of settings pages.

       

      Going Forward: Content on your profile, from your hometown to your latest photo album, will appear next to an icon and a drop-down menu. This inline menu lets you know who can see this part of your profile, and you can change it with one click.

       

       

      A side benefit of moving most settings to inline controls is a much shorter and simpler Settings page.  A bunch of settings that were there previously have been moved directly inline, and a handful have been replaced or removed. (You can find more detail on the profile settings here: http://www.facebook.com/about/control)

       

      Profile Tag Review

       

      Before: Photos you were tagged in would show up on your profile as soon as you were tagged. One of the top requests we've heard is for the ability to approve these tags before they show up on your profile.

       

      Going Forward: You can choose to use the new tool to approve or reject any photo or post you are tagged in before it's visible to anyone else on your profile.

       

       

      Content Tag Review

       

      Before: Anyone who could see your photos or posts could add tags to them.

       

      Going Forward: You have the option to review and approve or reject any tag someone tries to add to your photos and posts.

       

       

      View Profile As…

       

      Before: We heard you wanted to know what your profile looked like to others, but the tool for doing this was behind the scenes.

       

      Going Forward: This tool is now on the top of your profile where it's easier to access.

       

       

       

      When You Share

       

      In addition to the profile changes, it will now be more visually straightforward to understand and control who can see your posts at the time you share them. We're also broadening the functionality of the sharing tool: now if you want to make your posts more expressive, we've made it simple to add location and tag the people you're with.

       

      Inline controls

       

      Before: Controls for who could see your stuff on Facebook lived on a settings page a few clicks away.

       

      Going Forward: The control for who can see each post will be right inline. For each audience, there is now an icon and label to help make it easier to understand and decide who you're sharing with. Also, when you tag someone, the audience label will automatically update to show that the person tagged and their friends can see the post.

       

       

      This dropdown menu will be expanding over time to include smaller groups of people you may want to share with, like co-workers, Friend Lists you've created, and Groups you're a member of. These will make it easy to quickly select exactly the audience you want for any post.

       

      If you're posting to Facebook from a phone or app that does not yet support inline controls, your setting will be the same as it is today. You can change this with a new setting available on your privacy settings page. (For a guided tour of these new controls, go here: http://www.facebook.com/about/sharing)

       

      Word Change: "Everyone" to "Public"

       

      Before: You had the option to share a post with Everyone, which meant that anyone on the internet might be able to see it.

       

      Going Forward: We are changing the name of this label from Everyone to Public so that the control is more descriptive of the behavior: anyone may see it, but not everyone will see it. This is just to make the setting more clear, and it's just a language change.

       

      Change Your Mind After You Post?

       

      Before: Once you posted a status update, you couldn't change who could see it.

       

      Going Forward: Now you'll be able to change who can see any post after the fact. If you accidentally posted something to the wrong group, or changed your mind, you can adjust it with the inline control at any time.

       

      Tag Who You're With, or What You Want to Talk About

       

      Before: You could only tag someone if you were friends with them, and you could only tag a Page if you had liked it. This felt broken or awkward if you had a photo album of co-workers and had to become Facebook friends to tag them in the photos.

       

      Going Forward: You can add tags of your friends or anyone else on Facebook. If you are ever tagged by a non-friend, it won't appear on your profile unless you review and approve the post.

       

      Tag Locations in Posts

       

      Before: You could only "check in" to locations using the Places feature on a smart phone.

       

      Going Forward: Now you can add location to anything. Lots of people use Facebook to talk about where they are, have been or want to go. Now you can add location from anywhere, regardless of what device you are using, or whether it is a status update, photo or Wall post. Of course, you can always choose not to add location at all.

       

       

      As a part of this, we are phasing out the mobile-only Places feature. Settings associated with it are also being phased out or removed. (You can read more about how location works and settings affected here: http://www.facebook.com/about/location)

       

      Remove Tags or Content from Facebook

       

      Before: When we asked, people had different ideas of what removing a tag actually did, and different motivations for wanting to remove them.

       

      Going Forward: Your options for removing tags or content on Facebook are presented more clearly. Your options are: removing from your profile, removing the tag itself, messaging the photo owner or tagger, and requesting the content get taken down. (More details on tagging can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/about/tagging)

       

       

      These changes will start to roll out in the coming days. When they reach you, you'll see a prompt for a tour that walks you through these new features from your homepage. In the meantime, you can read more about the upcoming changes from the links throughout this post. We'll look forward to your feedback on all of this.

       

      Taken together, we hope these new tools make it easier to share with exactly who you want, and that the resulting experience is a lot clearer and a lot more fun.

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    • by Jared Morgenstern on Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 5:21pm

      For those who enjoy games on Facebook, we're launching new features to make it easier to find new games and play with friends.  

       

      A new game ticker

       

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

      ...

       

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

       

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

       

      More room to play

       

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

       

       

      Bookmark your Favorites

       

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

       

       

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

       

      Jared is playing the 'Jersey Shore' game.

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    • by Lucy Zhang on Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 12:03pm

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

       

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

       

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

       

      A whole new app

       

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

       

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

       

       

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

       

      Make plans with groups

       

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

       

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

       

       

       

      How to get Messenger

       

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

       

       

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

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    • Topics: Messenger
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    • by Philip Su on Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 10:23am

      Over the last year, the messages team has been working to make it easier to have one on one conversations with your friends. In November, we launched the new messages, which brings together your chats, texts, emails and messages all in one place.

       

      Today I'm excited to introduce video calling and other improvements to chat.

       

      See The Friends You Message  Most

      ...

      The new chat design includes a sidebar that lists the people you message most. Now it's easier to find your friends and start a conversation. The sidebar adjusts with the size of your browser window, and it automatically appears when the window is wide enough.

       

       

      Create a Group Chat Instantly

      We're also launching multi-person chat, which is one of our most requested features. Now when your friends can't figure out what movie to see, you can just add them to a chat and decide together. To include more friends in your conversation, simply select Add Friends to Chat.

       

       

      And just like your other chats, the history of your conversation is available in messages.

       

      Bring Your Conversations to Life

      Video chat has been around for years now, but it's still not an everyday activity for most people. Sometimes it's too difficult to set up, or the friends you want to talk to are on different services.

       

      So a few months ago, we started working with Skype to bring video calling to Facebook. We built it right into chat, so all your conversations start from the same place. To call your friend, just click the video call button at the top of your chat window.

       

      Talk to friends around the world right from Facebook.

       

      For those of us who have been working on this, it's particularly exciting to bring video calling to over 750 million people. We're making this available in over 70 different languages, so friends can stay in touch all over the world.

       

      Video calling will be available to everyone over the next few weeks, but if you don't want to wait, you can get it now.

       

       

      Philip Su, an engineer on the video calling team, will be making his first video call to his parents back in Maryland


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    • by Justin Mitchell on Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 5:16pm

      UPDATE on Thursday, June 30, 2011: You may have noticed a box appearing on the right of your home page called "Photos are better with friends". This is a new way of telling you about features we have added to Facebook such as our Photo Tag Suggest. We showed this over 2.7 billion times to help people to learn about the feature and how they can control it.

       

      UPDATE on Tuesday, June 7, 2011: We've been rolling Tag Suggestions out over the last several months and this feature is now available in most countries. We'll continue to post updates here as... the roll-out progresses.

       

      Original Post Dec. 15, 2010.

       

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

       

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

       

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

       

       

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

       

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

       

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

       

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

       

       

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

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    • Topics: Photos, Tagging
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    • by Emily C White on Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 6:07am

      A few months ago we launched Check-In Deals, to help you get special offers when you check in at local businesses from your mobile. Today we're going a step further and testing a new feature to help you find fun experiences to share with your favorite people: Deals on Facebook.

       

      Initially, Deals will be available to people in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco and we hope to expand this test to other cities in the future.

       

      Deals get social

      ...

      While many Deals on Facebook offer discounts, it's more important to us that you find interesting experiences around you to do with friends.  We've worked with partners and local businesses to help deliver the best social activities in your area.  And once you've found a deal you like, having the deal on Facebook makes it easy to share, buy and plan with your friends. 

       

      For example, Austin City Limits Live is offering an 'All Access Experience' for concerts starting in May. You can buy this deal and get backstage passes, sound check access and a catered dinner in addition to attending the show.

       

       

      How to find Deals

      You can find deals on Facebook in a couple of different ways — for example, you can get deals updates through email and notifications to find out about new deals in your area. You can also check out the Deals tab of your home page. If your friends chose to share this information, you may also see the deals friends buy or like in your News Feed. 

       

       

      We are working with aDealio, Gilt City, HomeRun, kgb deals, OpenTable, Plum District, PopSugar City, ReachLocal, Tippr, viagogo, and zozi, so you can buy their Deals on Facebook too.

       

      Whether you're making plans for this weekend or your best friend's birthday or a big anniversary, check out Deals on Facebook today to find cool things to do with friends. 

       

      Emily White, director of local at Facebook, is looking forward to indoor skydiving with her friends.


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    • Topics: Deals
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    • 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.

       

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      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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    • by Arturo Bejar on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 4:46am

      Safety has always been a social experience: as friends and family, we look out for each other and pass along advice to help each other stay safe. Safety on Facebook works the same way. By keeping each other informed, people make Facebook a more trusted environment. Today, we're making it easier to stay safe with the launch of new safety resources, tools for reporting issues and additional security features.

       

      More Resources for Families

       

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

       

      Social Reporting Tools

       

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

       

      Advanced Security Features

       

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

       

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

       

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

       

       

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


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    • by Adrian Graham on Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 12:03pm

      Friends are often the best source of advice when you're trying new things: Where should I go to dinner? How do I go buy a car? What new music should I check out? Friends know your tastes, and you have confidence in their opinions.

       

      Like many of our products, Questions originated as people began using Facebook in a new and unexpected way. People would update their status with a question, and their friends would answer in the comments. We saw this and began thinking about how we could make this interaction more useful. Over the summer, we... began testing Questions with a small group of people, and today we are beginning to roll it out to everyone.

       

      We noticed that people were frequently asking for opinions ("what are your favorite restaurants in New York?") or hoping to learn about their friends ("what was your favorite movie as a kid, something you watched over and over?"). For most of these questions, experts weren't going to be the best source for advice. The answers to these questions are meaningful or interesting because you know your friends and your friends know you.

       

      We wanted to make questions easier and faster to answer. With the updated Questions you can agree with an existing answer with a single click, or you can add a different response. This makes it easy for many more people to respond to you. It also helps us show you the most popular responses.

       

      Quickly get answers to your questions.

       

      Questions will also enable you to cast a wider net. Now, when your friends answer one of your questions, their friends can answer it too. For more unusual questions, you can get advice from a broader group of people, but to keep it most relevant we filter the answers to show you first what your friends think. You can see more responses by clicking "others" within the question.

       

      Questions will be available to everyone soon, but you can try it now here and learn more.

       

       

      Adrian, a product manager for Questions, is wondering, "What's the first question you'll ask with new Facebook Questions?"

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    • Topics: Questions
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