The Facebook Blog

Displaying all posts from November 2006

by Ari Steinberg Wednesday, November 29, 2006 at 12:13am

For those of you that experience Facebook withdrawal symptoms every time you start browsing other web sites, we built a new toolbar for Firefox. The Facebook Toolbar enables you to quickly access Facebook even if you're not on the site.

The toolbar gives you control over a set of pop-up notifications about incoming messages, pokes, friend requests, as well as when a friend writes on your wall, writes a note, or updates his or her status.

You can also jump right to a friend's profile by typing their name into the search box (which conveniently auto completes as you type). A collapsible side bar keeps your friends close at hand while you're browsing the web.

Finally, the toolbar makes it really easy to send cool sites to your friends as you browse the web via a nice big Share button.

The toolbar is just one example of the type of thing that can be built using the Facebook Development Platform. Our developer community is growing quickly with many new products and developers. If you're a developer, you can join in the conversation, learn more about the platform, and get help developing your own apps in the Facebook
Development Platform group.

We've left the source code for the toolbar fully open for you to learn from and modify. If you're looking for an example of how to use the Facebook Development Platform, this is it. We're dedicated to the open source community, so please check out some of our other open source projects.

Have fun with the toolbarâ€”we've also updated our application user Terms of Useâ€”and remember, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Ari, one of the Development Platform team members, can't wait to see which Facebook user will build the toolbar for other browsers.

Updated over a year ago

Keep the Ideas Comingâ€¦

by Katie Geminder Wednesday, November 22, 2006 at 11:36am

We frequently end blog entries with a sentence along the lines of, "if you have any suggestions, please send them here." It may seem as if you are sending your thoughts into a void, but our customer support team reads every suggestion that comes in and compiles lists of suggestions for everyone in the company. It helps us out a lot when you, the users, tell us what the small changes are that will improve the site. Whenever possible, we make these tweaks in order to make your time on Facebook even better. To offer a few examples, over the past few months, you've been responsible for:

1. Group Sorting Optionsâ€”There's always been a bunch of ways to sort your Friend List, but until recently the groups were only displayed in one way. Prompted by your feedback, we've introduced a menu of sorting options on the My Groups pageâ€”by recently updated, size, which ones you admin, sponsored, or secret groups.

2. Event Invites for unregistered emailsâ€”Events are a great way to plan and manage a guest list, but for a long time that guest list couldn't include people who didn't use Facebook. Now you can invite people to events using their email addresses. Even if they don't have a Facebook account, they can see the event and RSVP easily. And, while they don't have to register, they're certainly welcome to sign up for a Facebook account while they're at it.

Now you can select from a list of religious views. If we are missing any religions, please let us know.

3. The addition of "Religious Views"â€”Facebook has always had a space for political views on your profile, so it would stand to reason that another important part of many people's livesâ€”their religionâ€”would also have space. Thanks to your suggestions, we introduced a field for religions. Your input has also helped us add more auto-complete selections to the "Religious Views" list.

4. More Privacy Optionsâ€”Whenever you poke, message, or add someone as a friend who is not in one of your networks, they can see a portion of your profile. We used to set which parts were displayedâ€”leaving out things like contact information and photosâ€”and left in enough information for people to be able to identify who you are. After users requested it, we put control of this profile back into your handsâ€”now when you interact with someone outside of your networks, you can control what they can see about you.

So, thanks for all the great ideas, your feedback helps us constantly make Facebook better. Please, keep them coming.

Katie, Director of Product and the first Facebook blogger over 25, is giving thanks this week for Facebook usersâ€”they're never afraid to say what they think.

Updated over a year ago

Consider the Vote Rocked

by Ezra Callahan Friday, November 17, 2006 at 12:03pm

Last week saw one of the more historic midterm elections in recent times. The political shift in Washington and state capitals was certainly remarkable. But more importantly, young Americans turned out in droves to make their voices heard this November. According to the University of Maryland's Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, voting among 18 to 29 year olds increased 20 percent on 2002, with 2 million more young adults casting ballots.

Those numbers are exactly what we were hoping to see. The whole drive behind our Election 2006 project was to get more young Americans into voting booths. But no matter what it was that got you to the polls last Tuesday, it's great to see you flexing your political muscle and sending the government a message that younger Americans matter in the political arena.

Really, we just wanted to run this image one more time.

We've taken the Election 2006 information out of everyone's profiles, but Facebook will continue to promote civic engagement. We will soon be moving all the remaining politician profiles over to a more permanent home, and we will be creating profiles for all sitting U.S. Representatives, Senators and state governors. Any politician who wants to maintain an ongoing relationship with their younger constituents will be able to on Facebook. And soon we'll let you connect with the candidates for president in 2008 so you have plenty of time to get to know them before casting your vote.

Rock on.

Ezra, the project manager for the Election 2006 network, was a proud voter on election day.

Updated over a year ago

News Feed Just Got Better

by James Wang Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at 12:42am

Ever since we launched News Feed, we've been receiving a lot of suggestions on how to make it better. We've heard ideas like, "Show me fewer stories about wall posts," or, "Show me more stories about my roommates," or, "Show me more stories about wall posts and fewer stories about my roommates."

In the face of all this feedback, we've drawn one simple conclusion: everyone wants something a little bit different out of his or her News Feed. To help you out, starting today you'll be able to customize the selection of stories displayed in your own News Feed by visiting your News Feed Preferences page.

There are two main ways to express your preferences:

This "mixer" lets you set preferences for story types.

First, we've got a mixer-style control that you can use to prompt us for more or fewer stories of a certain type. If you crank the "Photos" setting to the top, the next time one of your friends uploads a new photo album, there's a good chance that you'll see it in your News Feed. Similarly, if you drag the "Groups" setting to the very bottom, we'll try not to show you any stories about friends joining or leaving groups (unless there's just nothing else going on). If you leave all of the settings around the middle, then you'll continue to get a variety of stories like you do today.

The "More About These Friends" and "Less About These Friends" lists help you see more about the people you care about most.

Second, we've provided a couple of friend lists for you to fill out. Maybe you have a group of friends who are traveling across Europe right now, and you want to keep tabs on what they're up to. If you add them to your "More About These Friends" list, we'll do our best to keep you informed on their latest adventures. Or maybe one of your friends is dominating your News Feed by always writing boring notes on what she ate yesterday; if you add her to the "Less About These Friends" list, we'll try not to subject you to any more of her culinary ramblings.

Note that these controls will have the greatest effect when there's a lot of activity by your friends on Facebook. On a slow news day, you'll probably see most of the stories going on around you, regardless of what preferences you've expressed.

Finally, rest assured that your News Feed Preferences will be visible only to you. We hope these controls help you enjoy your News Feed more, and please help us out by continuing to send us any questions or suggestions here.

James, a Facebook Engineer, hopes he hasn't discouraged anyone from writing more notes about last night's chicken nuggets.

Updated over a year ago

You Have Been Thanked by Facebook!

by Randi Zuckerberg Friday, November 10, 2006 at 10:38am

Did you forget to thank your friend for letting you crash for two weeks while you were "passing through town" last month? Or for helping you move that ridiculously heavy couch out of storage? Or are you just feeling thankful in general?

Poking someone or posting on their wall is a great way to say "hi," but sometimes you just need to say "thanks." Facebook has launched its Holiday Center, where you can send the friends you're thankful for a personalized thank-you. These thank-you messages are similar to wall posts, except that they live within the Facebook Holiday Centerâ€”this means when you visit the Holiday Center, you can see who has thanked you and who all your friends have thanked.

For example, you might see that:

Andrew was thanked by Anikka for getting the Manamana song stuck in my head.

or that:

Ashley was thanked by Denise for not sneezing on me.

or maybe even that:

Randi was thanked by Kasey for this fantastical Holiday Center!

Okay, I admit that was a pretty shameless plug on my part. Oh, and speaking of plugs, you may notice a few sponsored thank-you messages thrown in there. They shouldn't be too obtrusive and, after all, our sponsors are thankful, too!

Remember, no act is too small to be thankful for. So spread the cheer this holiday season and thank everyone you know. Or you may find all your friends "suddenly busy" when you have to move apartments next month...

When Randi Zuckerberg isn't busy with her cover band, Evanescence Essence, she works on special seasonal programs such as the Facebook Holiday Center.

Updated over a year ago

Vote!

by Ezra Callahan Monday, November 6, 2006 at 8:14pm

Uncle Sam may look like he's poking you, but in reality he wants you to vote.

Nearly 1.5 million people have made their voices heard with our Election 2006 network. Those voices certainly aired a wide range of views: Some took stances on the Iraq War (stay or leave), abortion (pro-choice or pro-life), and gay rights (for or against). The largest lot of you guys support lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18. Check out the Election Pulse; everything from the planet formerly known as Pluto to Stephen Colbert saw their supporters rally behind them.

Beyond the groups, your voices gave support to hundreds of candidates running for governorships and US Congress seats. A new form of online campaigning is starting to emerge.

But really none of this matters if you don't go out and vote. Election 2006 had one goal in mind: to get you engaged with the election so you'd get into the booth today to cast your ballot.

So make your pokes and wall posts countâ€”get out there and vote!

Update: Now that election day is over, check out our Election Pulse to see how the Facebook results compare to the national ones.

Ezra, the project manager for the Election 2006 network, is busy arguing politics around the office before heading off to the polls.

Updated over a year ago