Facebook features

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Facebook is a social networking website. This is a list of features that can be found on the website. Basic features include friend networking with others and posting on "wall".

Contents

[edit] Features

[edit] News Feed

On 6 September 2006, Ruchi Sanghvi announced a new home page feature called News Feed.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] Currently, users may prevent friends from seeing updates about several types of especially private activities, although other events are not customizable in this way.

Recently, Facebook allows users to minimize how often they see certain types of stories and certain friends in their News Feed.

[edit] 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 their 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,[4] whereas previously the wall was limited to text content only.

[edit] 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,[5] there are:

  • 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] Gifts

Some of Facebook's gifts, as displayed in the website's gift shop.
Some of Facebook's gifts, as displayed in the website's gift shop.

In February 2007, Facebook added a new 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 will see the message. None will see the giver's name, and the gift will go in the recipient's gift box but not the wall.

Facebook users are given one free gift to give upon account signup. 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.

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,[6] are not the same as the official gifts, as they are displayed in a different manner.

[edit] 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.[7] The market place is available for all Facebook users and is currently free.[8]

[edit] Pokes

Facebook includes a "poke" feature that allows one user to send a "poke" to another. According to Facebook's FAQ section on the Poke 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. However, while many Facebook users, as intended, use the feature to attract attention or say hello,[9] some users construe it as a sexual advance.[10] There are several applications such as "X Me" and "SuperPoke!" that allow users to put any action in place of the word "poke."

[edit] Status

The "status" feature allows users to inform their friends and the Facebook community of their current whereabouts and actions. 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, and all status updates read "User name ..."[11] Status updates are noted in the "Recently updated" section of a user's friend list. The three most updated statuses are shown in the top right of the homepage, however, some users report only seeing one update. Currently there is no explanation as to why this is happening.[citation needed]

[edit] Events

Facebook events are a way for members to let friends know about upcoming events in their community and to organize social gatherings.[12] Events require an event name, tagline, network, host name, event type, start and end time, location & city, 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, video, and posted items.

[edit] 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.

In May 2008 the first Facebook Oscars (The Facecars) was created as a group application.

Facebook Oscars consists of a virtue award ceremony specifically for Facebook users who have created memorable comments within the Facebook community. Plans are afoot for a live Oscars style awards ceremony.

[edit] Video

During the time that Facebook released its platform, it also released an application[13] of its own for sharing videos on Facebook. 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.

[edit] Chat

On April 5, 2008 Facebook pre-released Facebook Chat.[14][15] As of April 23, 2008, Facebook chat was released to the entire Facebook userbase. Users are only able to chat with their Facebook friends and on a one-to-one basis. As of yet, Digsby is the only third party instant messaging client to support Facebook Chat. However, Facebook Chat is available in Adium nightly builds and will be part of the 1.3 release. And Facebook Chat can also be run on the desktop, outside of the web browser using Gabtastik, an SSB desktop chat client. On May 13, 2008, a Facebook developer announced they are working on XMPP support, allowing hundreds of instant messaging clients to interoperate with the service.[16]

[edit] Applications

On May 24, 2007, Facebook launched the Facebook Platform,[17] which provides a framework for third party developers to create applications that interact with core Facebook features. Even games such as chess and Scrabble are available. As of January 31, 2008, there are more than 14,000 applications.[18]

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 clamor 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.[19]

On August 29, 2007, Facebook changed the way in which the popularity of applications is measured, in order to give more attention to the more engaging applications, following criticism that ranking applications only by the number of users was giving an advantage to the highly viral, yet useless applications.[20] Tech blog Valleywag has criticized Facebook Applications, labeling them a "cornucopia of uselessness."[21] Others have called for limiting third-party applications so the Facebook "user experience" is not degraded.[22][23]

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.[24]

[edit] Facebook Markup Language

Facebook Markup Language ("FBML") is a variant evolved subset of HTML with some elements removed. It allows Facebook Application developers to customise the "look and feel" of their applications, to a limited extent. It is the specification of how to encode your content so that Facebook's servers can read and publish it, which you will need to use in your Facebook-specific feed so that Facebook's system can properly parse your content and publish it as specified.[25] You set the FBML for a profile box by calling profile.setFBML through the API. The FBML is cached on Facebook's server until profile.setFBML is called again through a canvas page. The official FBML documentation is now hosted on the Facebook Developers Wiki.[26]

This FBML will expand to something like this:

<input type="hidden" name="fb_sig_profile" value="1160"/>
<input type="hidden" name="fb_sig_user" value="1160"/>
<input type="hidden" name="fb_sig_session_key" value="b12d7f73fc47536b32e89e-1160"/>
<input type="hidden" name="fb_sig_time" value="1176705186"/>
<input type="hidden" name="fb_sig" value="773af1263c2b7bade7958e6b58d3152f"/>

The fb_sig value is generated using all of the other fb_sig_ parameters (but without the "fb_sig_" prefix included in their names) identically to how it is generated in the API authentication scheme. The fb_sig_user and fb_sig_session_key parameters will only be included if the user has a valid session with the application.[27] Facebook also offers "API calls" by third party to access facebook information, specialised Facebook Javascript(FBJS) and Facebook Query Language (FQL) functions.[28]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sanghvi, Ruchi (2006-09-06). Facebook Gets a Facelift. The Facebook Blog. Retrieved on 2008-02-11.
  2. ^ Zuckerberg, Mark (2006-09-06). Calm down. Breathe. We hear you.. The Facebook Blog. Retrieved on 2008-02-11.
  3. ^ Zuckerberg, Mark (2006-09-08). An Open Letter from Mark Zuckerberg. The Facebook Blog. Retrieved on 2008-02-11.
  4. ^ Der, Kevin. Facebook is off-the-wall. Retrieved on 2007-07-30.
  5. ^ The Facebook Bifts. facebook.com. Retrieved on 2008-03-05.
  6. ^ "facebook gifts", insidefacebook.com. 
  7. ^ Facebook Adds Marketplace of Classified Ads (2007-05-12). Retrieved on 2007-05-15.
  8. ^ Marketplace. Facebook. Retrieved on 2008-03-05.
  9. ^ Arrington, J. Michael. "85% of College Students use FaceBook", TechCrunch, 2005-09-07. Retrieved on 2007-06-26. 
  10. ^ Facebook 'poke' leads to awkward one-nighter.
  11. ^ Facebook is... reconsidering the word "is". Retrieved on 2007-12-13.
  12. ^ Events. Facebook. Retrieved on 2008-03-05.
  13. ^ Cashmore, Pete (2007-05-24). Facebook Video Launches: YouTube Beware!. Retrieved on 2008-03-05.
  14. ^ Facebook Chat at TechCrunch. Facebook. Retrieved on 2008-03-15.
  15. ^ Facebook Chat at Facebook's support sites. Facebook. Retrieved on 2008-03-15.
  16. ^ Using Facebook Chat via Jabber. David Reiss. Retrieved on 2008-05-14.
  17. ^ "Facebook Platform Launches", Facebook, 2007-05-27. Retrieved on 2007-09-03. 
  18. ^ Facebook. Application Directory. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
  19. ^ "Altura Ventures news", Altura Ventures, 2007-07-04. Retrieved on 2007-09-03. 
  20. ^ Morin, Dave. "A shift to engagement", Facebook, 2007-08-29. Retrieved on 2007-08-31. 
  21. ^ Can a Facebook app possibly be useful?. Valleywag.com (2005-09-26). Retrieved on 2007-10-16.
  22. ^ Timmons, Zack (2007-12-03). Useless applications plague Facebook. The Lantern. Retrieved on 2008-03-05.
  23. ^ Lee, Tim (2007-11-30). Irritating Your Customers Is Almost Never A Good Business Strategy. Retrieved on 2008-03-05.
  24. ^ Kamil Dada (2007-11-30). Kamil Dada from Stanford University explains the success of Facebook applications developed in a class at Stanford University. Retrieved on 2007-12-15.
  25. ^ Mashery (2007-05-26). "Facebook Markup Language - A "Reverse API"". Press release.
  26. ^ Main Page - Facebook Developers Wiki
  27. ^ Facebook (2007-05-26). "Facebook Developers"". Press release.
  28. ^ facebook developers wiki