Facebook features
Encyclopedia
Facebook
is a social networking
website, founded in 2004. This is a list of features that can be found on the Facebook website, as well as technology features on the website.
. As of April 23, 2008, Facebook Chat was released to the entire Facebook user base. Users may chat with their Facebook friends on a one-to-one basis, or a user may chat with multiple friends simultaneously through the groups feature. Instant messaging clients that currently support Facebook Chat include AOL Instant Messenger
, eBuddy
, Flock
, Miranda IM
, Trillian, Empathy
, Digsby
, Pidgin
, Adium
, Nimbuzz
, FIM (Windows Mobile / Windows Phone 7), Palringo
(Windows Mobile), Meebo
, Tokbox
as well as QIP Infium
with a Firefox plugin. Windows Live Messenger
2011 (Wave 4) can connect to Facebook as well. Facebook Chat can also be run on the desktop using Gabtastik, a dedicated web chat browser. Facebook Chat can also be run on the iPhone using Facebook Chat for iPhone app. Facebook also released the official app for iPad. Facebook chat is also available to use for Blackberry users via the Blackberry Facebook app. 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; this functionality became operational on February 10, 2010.
As of August 2011, Facebook Chat supports video chat. Upon using the feature for the first time users must download a plug-in for their web browser.
s in many games and applications on the Facebook platform. As of July 2010, users of Facebook can purchase Facebook credits in Australian Dollars
, British Pound
, Canadian Dollars
, Chilean Peso
, Colombian Peso
, Danish Krone
, Euro
, Hong Kong Dollar
, Japanese Yen
, Norwegian Krone
, Swedish Krona
, Swiss Franc
, Turkish Lira
, US Dollars
, and Venezuelan Bolivar
. Facebook credits can be used on many popular games such as Happy Aquarium, Happy Island, Zoo Paradise, Happy Pets, Hello City, It Girl FarmVille
, and Mafia Wars
.
's word of the year in 2009.
Facebook profiles may be set by a user to greatly restrict access to those users who are not "friends," for example, blocking access to photos of that person and contact information. After a person accepts a friend request, the new "friend" then has much greater access to that person's profile information.
, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco with the hope of expanding. This new offering is a direct competitor to other social commerce sites such as LivingSocial
and Groupon
for online coupons and deals-of-the-day
. Facebook users will be able to use Facebook Credits
to purchase vouchers that can be redeemed for real goods and services. Facebook have sinced closed their deal program
s that Facebook had at one time or another.
site. The service, powered by Livestream
, will feature videos from Facebook staff members and celebrity interviews, but is not designed for Facebook users to showcase their own videos. All the content shown on Facebook Live will have some tie-in with Facebook products, features, or how people are using the site. Facebook said this is not an opening to get them into the video distribution space.
The first official guest was America Ferrera
, the leading actress in the television series Ugly Betty
. She discussed her new independent film The Dry Land, that was being promoted almost exclusively through social media channels.
, Facebook said that it was offering "experimental, non-production" support for IPv6
, the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol
. The news about Facebook's IPv6 support was expected; Facebook told Network World in February 2010, that it planned to support native IPv6 user requests "by the midpoint of this year."
In a presentation at the Google IPv6 Implementors Conference, Facebook's network engineers said it was "easy to make [the] site available on v6." Facebook said it deployed dual-stack IPv4
and IPv6 support on its routers, and that it made no changes to its hosts in order to support IPv6. Facebook also said it was supporting an emerging encapsulation mechanism known as Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol
(LISP), which separates Internet addresses from endpoint identifiers to improve the scalability of IPv6 deployments. "Facebook was the first major Web site on LISP (v4 and v6)," Facebook engineers said during their presentation. Facebook said that using LISP allowed them to deploy IPv6 services quickly with no extra cost. Facebook's IPv6 services are available at www.v6.facebook.com, m.v6.facebook.com, www.lisp6.facebook.com and m.lisp6.facebook.com.
at the bottom of the post or content. This makes the content appear in their friends' News feeds. Facebook says "Liking" is intended to "Give positive feedback and connect with things you care about".
A "Like Button" is also available for use on websites outside Facebook: "When the user clicks the Like button on [a] site, a story appears in the user's friends' News Feed with a link back to [the] website." At the same time when any visitor, including non Facebook members and logged out users, visit a site with the Like Button, their presence on the site is recorded by Facebook. Introduced in April 2010, by September 2010 over 350,000 sites had installed it. A "Like Box" also allows Facebook page owners to see how many users and which of their friends like the page. From the end of 2010 and in the US, Microsoft's Bing
search engine identifies which links in the results have been "Liked" by the searcher's Facebook friends.
A lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles in 2010 claiming the Facebook should not allow minors to "like" advertising; Facebook said the suit was "completely without merit." Because websites with a "Like Button" send IP address information of all visitors to Facebook, the German state of Schleswig-Holstein
said in August 2011 that the button breaches German data protection laws and that federal agencies should remove the buttons and similar social plugins from their websites. Canada's Privacy Commissioner raised similar concerns in 2010. "Like" links are vulnerable to likejacking
, a form of clickjacking that makes users "Like" content they did not intend to. An Israeli couple named their child "Like" after the Facebook feature in 2011.
In August 2011, Google
linked their +1 button to Google Plus to rival the Facebook Like Button.
On November 15, 2010, Facebook announced a new "Facebook Messages" service. In a media event that day, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "It's true that people will be able to have a @facebook.com email addresses, but it's not email." The launch of such a feature had been anticipated for some time before the announcement, with some calling it a "Gmail killer." The system, to be available to all of the website's users, combines text messaging
, instant messaging
, email
s, and regular messages, and will include privacy settings similar to those of other Facebook services.
Since October 2010, there are version 0 (legacy) and version 1 (current) groups. Version 1 or "new" groups can contain the name of the group in their URL if the groups emailaddress of the group is set. Groups do not have a RSS feed to export the wall or the member list, such as Pages have, but external services provide such services
A flag which indicates if the group was created prior to launch of the current groups product in October 2010.
Facebook customers can create "Like Pages" which allows fans of an individual, organization, product, service, or concept to join a Facebook fan club. Like Pages 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. Early on, users had the option to "become a fan" of the page until 19 April 2010 when the option was later changed to "like" the page. While an individual with a personal profile can acquire up to 5,000 friends, a "Like Page" can have an unlimited number of "Likers". "Like Pages" can also be customized by adding new Tabs using the Static FBML application. This powerful feature can bring additional functionality to a page such as e-mail collection, specialized content, or a landing page for sales activity. The URLs of "Like Pages" start with
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." 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. 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" - in early February 2010 - came a total redesign of the pages, several new features and changes to News Feeds. 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.
, CEO Mark Zuckerberg was noted to have said, "Our strategy is very horizontal. We're trying to build a social layer for everything," while denying that they were attempting to compete with the Apple iPhone or Android.
during a live Facebook webinar.
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".
s offer access to the Facebook services either through their web-browsers or applications. The Facebook iPhone-compatible web site was launched August 2007 and as of July 2008 over 1.5 million people used it regularly, at the point when a free application for the iOS named "Facebook for iPhone" was launched. 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. Version 3.0 was released in August 2009 and added features such as events, and uploading video with an iPhone 3GS
.
In the latest update for the Facebook for iPhone app, GPS use is also integrated in the app under the section "places" in which you can discover moments and experiences when you and your friends are at the same place at the same time. This app is compatible with iPhone 3G, 3Gs, 4, and 4S running iOS 3.0 or later.
Microsoft
developed an application for Facebook on their Windows Phone 7
platform, avalible in the Windows Phone Marketplace
. You can pin elements such as Messages, Events, the News Feed, and Photos directly onto your homescreen. It also includes tile notifications for events, friend requests, tags, and so on.
Windows Mobile
platform, including features such as messaging, uploading pictures and video straight from the device, managing profile information, contact integration allowing users to call anyone in their friends list that has their number in their profile information. It is also possible to add an chat feature to Windows Mobile via third-party software such as FIM, available in the Windows Mobile Marketplace.
Nokia
also 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.
Google's Android 2.0 OS automatically includes an official Facebook app. The first device to use this is the Motorola Droid
. The app has options to sync Facebook friends with contacts, which adds profile pictures and status updates to the contacts list. Research In Motion
also offers a Facebook application for the BlackBerry
. It includes a range of functions, including an ability to integrate Facebook events into the BlackBerry calendar, and using Facebook profile pictures for Caller ID.
made its presence on the smartphones as mentioned but also is present for the feature phone
s. As the company said that the feature phones dominate the American cell phone markets hence an app was exclusively made for this purpose as well.
According to the FAQ, "Facebook reserves the right to remove and/or reclaim any username at any time for any reason".
.
In July 2007, Facebook allowed users to post attachments to the Wall, whereas previously the Wall was limited to text only. In May 2008, the Wall-to-Wall for each profile was limited to only 40 posts. Recently Facebook has allowed users to insert html code in boxes attached to the wall via apps like Static FBML which has allowed marketers to track use of their fan pages with Google Analytics.
In February 2011, Facebook began to use the hCalendar microformat
to mark up events, and the hCard microformat
for the events' venues, enabling the extraction of details to users' own calendar or mapping applications.
In November 2010, Facebook announced "Deals", a subset of the Places offering, which allows for users to check in from restaurants, supermarkets, bars, and coffee shops using an app on a mobile device and then be rewarded discounts, coupons, and free merchandise. This feature is marketed as a digital version of a loyalty card
or coupon where a customer gets rewarded for loyal buying behavior.
Available countries: places is currently available only in some countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Canada, Cayman Islands, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, South Africa, Finland, Ireland, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Philippines, and Malaysia with many more on the way.
Supported phones: On October 10, 2010, Places became available on BlackBerry
, after iPhone
. The Android OS is also places capable. Other users, including Windows Mobile users, must use a HTML5 browser to use Places via Facebook Touch Site.
Discontinuation: Facebook Places was reported discontinued on August 24, 2011.
Facebook Platform Statistics as of May 2010:
Third party companies such as Adonomics, Kontagent and Mixpanel provide 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.
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. Tech blog Valleywag has criticized Facebook Applications, labeling them a "cornucopia of uselessness."[5] Others have called for limiting third-party applications so the Facebook "user experience" is not degraded.
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.
.
cannot be used with FBML.
According to the Facebook Markup Language (FBML) Developer's page, FBML is now deprecated. No new features will be added to FBML and developers are recommended to develop new applications utilizing HTML, JavaScript and CSS. FBML support will end January 1, 2012 and FBML will no longer function as of June 1, 2012.
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 planned to allow a wider variety of gifts in the future.
The built-in Gifts feature was removed on August 1, 2010, to allow Facebook to focus on more important website features. Existing gift-giving applications can be used as a replacement for the Gifts feature.
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
is a social networking
Social network service
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...
website, founded in 2004. This is a list of features that can be found on the Facebook website, as well as technology features on the website.
Chat
On April 5, 2008, Facebook pre-released Facebook ChatOnline chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the directions...
. As of April 23, 2008, Facebook Chat was released to the entire Facebook user base. Users may chat with their Facebook friends on a one-to-one basis, or a user may chat with multiple friends simultaneously through the groups feature. Instant messaging clients that currently support Facebook Chat include AOL Instant Messenger
AOL Instant Messenger
AOL Instant Messenger is an instant messaging and presence computer program which uses the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time. It was released by AOL in May 1997...
, eBuddy
EBuddy
eBuddy is a privately held company which owns a browser-based web and mobile messenger service supporting various instant messaging services. eBuddy was launched in 2003 under the name e-Messenger, located at www.e-messenger.net, before rebranding itself in 2006 to eBuddy.eBuddy supports Windows...
, Flock
Flock (web browser)
Flock was a web browser that specialized in providing social networking and Web 2.0 facilities built into its user interface.Earlier versions of Flock used the Gecko HTML rendering engine by Mozilla....
, Miranda IM
Miranda IM
Miranda IM is an open source multiprotocol instant messaging application, designed for Microsoft Windows. Miranda is free software distributed under GNU General Public License.- Architecture :...
, Trillian, Empathy
Empathy (software)
Empathy is an instant messaging client which supports text, voice, video, file transfers, and inter-application communication over various IM protocols....
, Digsby
Digsby
Digsby is a freeware proprietary multiprotocol instant messaging application developed by dotSyntax, LLC. Digsby is written in Python and uses wxPython as its widget toolkit and WebKit for rendering...
, Pidgin
Pidgin (software)
Pidgin is an open-source multi-platform instant messaging client, based on a library named libpurple. Libpurple has support for many commonly used instant messaging protocols, allowing the user to log into various services from one application.The number of Pidgin users was estimated to be over 3...
, Adium
Adium
Adium is a free and open source instant messaging client for Mac OS X that supports multiple IM networks, including Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AIM, ICQ, and XMPP. It supports many protocols through the libraries libezv , MGTwitterEngine , and libpurple...
, Nimbuzz
Nimbuzz IM
Nimbuzz IM is a free peer-to-peer mobile and desktop application service that enables people to chat/ call from their mobile phones and desktop applications. Co founded by Evert Jaap Lugt, Nimbuzz IM allows users to add their Gtalk, Facebook, Yahoo, Windows Live, AIM, Twitter, MySpace IM, ICQ and...
, FIM (Windows Mobile / Windows Phone 7), Palringo
Palringo
Palringo is a server-based instant messaging client for various platforms. It supports several protocols such as AOL Instant Messenger , Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, XMPP/Jabber, Google Talk, Gadu-Gadu, ICQ, MobileMe/iChat and Facebook IM....
(Windows Mobile), Meebo
Meebo
Meebo is a social platform connecting users with their friends across the web. It began in 2005 as a browser based instant messaging program which supported multiple IM services, including Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, AIM, ICQ, MySpaceIM, Facebook Chat, Google Talk, CafeMom and...
, Tokbox
Tokbox
TokBox provides a free API that allows anyone to add group video chat features to their own websites. Experienced programmers use the OpenTok API to build custom interactive video chat applications...
as well as QIP Infium
Quiet Internet Pager
QIP is a multiprotocol instant messaging client. It is a closed source freeware program originally developed by Ilgam Zyulkorneev. In 2008 it was bought by RosBusinessConsulting media group and named most popular RBC service in 2009.- Features :...
with a Firefox plugin. Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger is an instant messaging client created by Microsoft that is currently designed to work with Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Xbox 360, Blackberry OS, iOS, Java ME, S60 on Symbian OS 9.x and Zune HD...
2011 (Wave 4) can connect to Facebook as well. Facebook Chat can also be run on the desktop using Gabtastik, a dedicated web chat browser. Facebook Chat can also be run on the iPhone using Facebook Chat for iPhone app. Facebook also released the official app for iPad. Facebook chat is also available to use for Blackberry users via the Blackberry Facebook app. On May 13, 2008, a Facebook developer announced that they are working on XMPP
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol is an open-standard communications protocol for message-oriented middleware based on XML . The protocol was originally named Jabber, and was developed by the Jabber open-source community in 1999 for near-real-time, extensible instant messaging , presence...
support, allowing hundreds of instant messaging clients to interoperate with the service; this functionality became operational on February 10, 2010.
As of August 2011, Facebook Chat supports video chat. Upon using the feature for the first time users must download a plug-in for their web browser.
Credits
Facebook Credits are a virtual currency you can use to buy gifts, and virtual goodVirtual good
Virtual goods are non-physical objects purchased for use in online communities or online games. They have no intrinsic value and are intangible by definition....
s in many games and applications on the Facebook platform. As of July 2010, users of Facebook can purchase Facebook credits in Australian Dollars
Australian dollar
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
, British Pound
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
, Canadian Dollars
Canadian dollar
The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. As of 2007, the Canadian dollar is the 7th most traded currency in the world. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
, Chilean Peso
Chilean peso
The peso is the currency of Chile. The current peso has circulated since 1975, with a previous version circulating between 1817 and 1960. The symbol used locally for it is $. The ISO 4217 code for the present peso is CLP. It is subdivided into 100 centavos, although no centavo denominated coins...
, Colombian Peso
Colombian peso
The peso is the currency of Colombia. Its ISO 4217 code is COP and it is also informally abbreviated as COL$. However, the official peso symbol is $. As 20 July 2011, the exchange rate of the Colombian peso is 1750 Colombian pesos to 1 U.S. dollar.-History:The peso has been the currency of Colombia...
, Danish Krone
Danish krone
The krone is the official currency of the Kingdom of Denmark consisting of Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. It is subdivided into 100 øre...
, Euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
, Hong Kong Dollar
Hong Kong dollar
The Hong Kong dollar is the currency of the jurisdiction. It is the eighth most traded currency in the world. In English, it is normally abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or alternatively HK$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
, Japanese Yen
Japanese yen
The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most traded currency in the foreign exchange market after the United States dollar and the euro. It is also widely used as a reserve currency after the U.S. dollar, the euro and the pound sterling...
, Norwegian Krone
Norwegian krone
The krone is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. The plural form is kroner . It is subdivided into 100 øre. The ISO 4217 code is NOK, although the common local abbreviation is kr. The name translates into English as "crown"...
, Swedish Krona
Swedish krona
The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...
, Swiss Franc
Swiss franc
The franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein; it is also legal tender in the Italian exclave Campione d'Italia. Although not formally legal tender in the German exclave Büsingen , it is in wide daily use there...
, Turkish Lira
Turkish lira
The Turkish lira is the currency of Turkey and the de facto independent state of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The lira is subdivided into 100 kuruş...
, US Dollars
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
, and Venezuelan Bolivar
Venezuelan bolívar
The bolívar fuerte is the currency of Venezuela since 1 January 2008. It is subdivided into 100 céntimos and replaced the bolívar at the rate of Bs.F. 1 = Bs...
. Facebook credits can be used on many popular games such as Happy Aquarium, Happy Island, Zoo Paradise, Happy Pets, Hello City, It Girl FarmVille
FarmVille
FarmVille is a farming simulation social network game developed by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to Happy Farm, Farm Town,, and older games such as the Harvest Moon series...
, and Mafia Wars
Mafia Wars
Mafia Wars is a multiplayer Social network game created by Zynga.In Mafia Wars the gamers play as gangsters building their own mafia. The players fight other players online and complete tasks to gain rewards and strength in the game. The game is a freemium game, meaning it is free to play normally...
.
Friend
To "Friend" means "to send a friend request on Facebook." It is possible in Facebook's friend settings to remove someone from the Friend status, which is referred to as "Unfriend" by Facebook, or also "De-Friend". "Unfriend" was New Oxford American DictionaryNew Oxford American Dictionary
The New Oxford American Dictionary is a single-volume dictionary of American English compiled by American editors at the Oxford University Press....
's word of the year in 2009.
Facebook profiles may be set by a user to greatly restrict access to those users who are not "friends," for example, blocking access to photos of that person and contact information. After a person accepts a friend request, the new "friend" then has much greater access to that person's profile information.
Deals
On April 25, 2011, Facebook announced a pilot program called Deals, which offers online coupons and discounts from local businesses. Facebook initially released Deals as a “test” in five cities: Atlanta, AustinAustin
Austin is the capital of the U.S. state of Texas.Austin may also refer to:-In the United States:*Austin, Arkansas*Austin, Colorado*Austin, Chicago, Illinois*Austin, Indiana*Austin, Minnesota*Austin, Nevada*Austin, Oregon...
, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco with the hope of expanding. This new offering is a direct competitor to other social commerce sites such as LivingSocial
LivingSocial
-Business model:LivingSocial offers a new deal each day to its members who subscribe via email. Once a deal has been purchased, members are e-mailed their redemption vouchers the following business day, around 5 a.m. local time...
and Groupon
Groupon
Groupon is a deal-of-the-day website that features discounted gift certificates usable at local or national companies. Groupon was launched in November 2008, the first market for Groupon was Chicago, followed soon thereafter by Boston, New York City, and Toronto...
for online coupons and deals-of-the-day
One deal a day
Deal of the day is a type of ecommerce in which a website offers a single product for sale for a period of 24 to 36 hours...
. Facebook users will be able to use Facebook Credits
Facebook Credits
Facebook Credits is a virtual currency that enables people to purchase items in games and non-gaming applications on the Facebook Platform. One U.S. dollar is the equivalent of 10 Facebook Credits. Facebook Credits are currently available in 15 currencies including U.S. dollars, pound sterling,...
to purchase vouchers that can be redeemed for real goods and services. Facebook have sinced closed their deal program
Easter eggs
The following are easter eggEaster egg (media)
Image:Carl Oswald Rostosky - Zwei Kaninchen und ein Igel 1861.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Example of Easter egg hidden within imagerect 467 383 539 434 desc none...
s that Facebook had at one time or another.
- At one time, entering the Konami CodeKonami CodeThe Konami Code, known in Japan as the , is a cheat code that appears in many Konami video games, although the code also appears in some non-Konami games...
followed by Enter at the home page caused a lensflare-style series of circles to display when clicking, typing, or scrolling. - Facebook chat supports some unusual emoticons.
- Asking "how is babby formed?" with the Questions feature released September 23, 2010 will Rickroll the user.
- A user can change his/her language to Leet Speak, Pirate language, and upside down English.
Facebook Live
On August 13, 2010, Facebook launched a new service called "Facebook Live", a live streaming video channel that is intended to keep Facebook users updated to what is happening on the social networkingSocial network service
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...
site. The service, powered by Livestream
Livestream
Livestream, formerly known as Mogulus, is a live streaming video platform that allows users to view and broadcast video content using a camera and a computer through the internet...
, will feature videos from Facebook staff members and celebrity interviews, but is not designed for Facebook users to showcase their own videos. All the content shown on Facebook Live will have some tie-in with Facebook products, features, or how people are using the site. Facebook said this is not an opening to get them into the video distribution space.
The first official guest was America Ferrera
America Ferrera
America Georgina Ferrera is an American actress, best known for playing the lead role in the television comedy series Ugly Betty...
, the leading actress in the television series Ugly Betty
Ugly Betty
Ugly Betty is an American comedy-drama television series developed by Silvio Horta, which premiered on ABC on September 28, 2006, and ended on April 14, 2010. The series revolves around the character Betty Suarez and is based on Fernando Gaitán's Colombian telenovela soap opera Yo soy Betty, la fea...
. She discussed her new independent film The Dry Land, that was being promoted almost exclusively through social media channels.
IPv6
According to a June 2010 report by Network WorldNetwork World
Network World is a weekly IT publication that provides news and information to network executives. The company is headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts, United States....
, Facebook said that it was offering "experimental, non-production" support for IPv6
IPv6
Internet Protocol version 6 is a version of the Internet Protocol . It is designed to succeed the Internet Protocol version 4...
, the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol
Communications protocol
A communications protocol is a system of digital message formats and rules for exchanging those messages in or between computing systems and in telecommunications...
. The news about Facebook's IPv6 support was expected; Facebook told Network World in February 2010, that it planned to support native IPv6 user requests "by the midpoint of this year."
In a presentation at the Google IPv6 Implementors Conference, Facebook's network engineers said it was "easy to make [the] site available on v6." Facebook said it deployed dual-stack IPv4
IPv4
Internet Protocol version 4 is the fourth revision in the development of the Internet Protocol and the first version of the protocol to be widely deployed. Together with IPv6, it is at the core of standards-based internetworking methods of the Internet...
and IPv6 support on its routers, and that it made no changes to its hosts in order to support IPv6. Facebook also said it was supporting an emerging encapsulation mechanism known as Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol
Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol
LISP is a "map-and-encapsulate" protocol which is currently developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force LISP Working Group. The basic idea behind the separation is that the Internet architecture combines two functions, routing locators and identifiers in one number space: the IP address...
(LISP), which separates Internet addresses from endpoint identifiers to improve the scalability of IPv6 deployments. "Facebook was the first major Web site on LISP (v4 and v6)," Facebook engineers said during their presentation. Facebook said that using LISP allowed them to deploy IPv6 services quickly with no extra cost. Facebook's IPv6 services are available at www.v6.facebook.com, m.v6.facebook.com, www.lisp6.facebook.com and m.lisp6.facebook.com.
Like
Users of Facebook can "like" status updates, comments, photos, and links posted by their Facebook friends and other users, as well as adverts, by clicking a linkLike button
A like button or like option is a feature in communication software such as social networking services, Internet forums and blogs where the user can express that they like, enjoy or support a certain content. Internet services that feature like buttons usually display the quantity of users that...
at the bottom of the post or content. This makes the content appear in their friends' News feeds. Facebook says "Liking" is intended to "Give positive feedback and connect with things you care about".
A "Like Button" is also available for use on websites outside Facebook: "When the user clicks the Like button on [a] site, a story appears in the user's friends' News Feed with a link back to [the] website." At the same time when any visitor, including non Facebook members and logged out users, visit a site with the Like Button, their presence on the site is recorded by Facebook. Introduced in April 2010, by September 2010 over 350,000 sites had installed it. A "Like Box" also allows Facebook page owners to see how many users and which of their friends like the page. From the end of 2010 and in the US, Microsoft's Bing
Bing
Bing is a web search engine from Microsoft.Bing may also refer to:* An onomatopœia of a bell sound* Bing cherry, a variety of cherry* Bing , Chinese flatbread* Bing , a German company that manufactured toys and kitchen utensils...
search engine identifies which links in the results have been "Liked" by the searcher's Facebook friends.
A lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles in 2010 claiming the Facebook should not allow minors to "like" advertising; Facebook said the suit was "completely without merit." Because websites with a "Like Button" send IP address information of all visitors to Facebook, the German state of Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...
said in August 2011 that the button breaches German data protection laws and that federal agencies should remove the buttons and similar social plugins from their websites. Canada's Privacy Commissioner raised similar concerns in 2010. "Like" links are vulnerable to likejacking
Likejacking
Likejacking, a form of clickjacking, is a malicious technique of tricking users of a website into posting a Facebook status update for a site they did not intentionally mean to "like"...
, a form of clickjacking that makes users "Like" content they did not intend to. An Israeli couple named their child "Like" after the Facebook feature in 2011.
In August 2011, Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
linked their +1 button to Google Plus to rival the Facebook Like Button.
Messages and Inbox
Since the website's founding, it has allowed users to send messages to each other. A Facebook user can send a message to any number of his/her friends at a time. Deleting a message from one's inbox does not delete it from the inbox of other users, thus disabling a sender to redo a message sent by him or her.On November 15, 2010, Facebook announced a new "Facebook Messages" service. In a media event that day, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "It's true that people will be able to have a @facebook.com email addresses, but it's not email." The launch of such a feature had been anticipated for some time before the announcement, with some calling it a "Gmail killer." The system, to be available to all of the website's users, combines text messaging
Text messaging
Text messaging, or texting, refers to the exchange of brief written text messages between fixed-line phone or mobile phone and fixed or portable devices over a network...
, instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
s, and regular messages, and will include privacy settings similar to those of other Facebook services.
Networks, Groups, and Like Pages
Facebook allows different networks and groups which many users can join. It also allows privacy settings on basis of networks. Groups are used for discussions, events, etc. and 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 includes but is not limited to the following: the members who have joined, recent news contents, wall contents, photos, posted items, videos and all associated comments of such items. In this respect, groups are similar to "Like pages" (below) but contain a different set of features. Groups are limited to 300 groups per Facebook customer.Since October 2010, there are version 0 (legacy) and version 1 (current) groups. Version 1 or "new" groups can contain the name of the group in their URL if the groups emailaddress of the group is set. Groups do not have a RSS feed to export the wall or the member list, such as Pages have, but external services provide such services
A flag which indicates if the group was created prior to launch of the current groups product in October 2010.
Facebook customers can create "Like Pages" which allows fans of an individual, organization, product, service, or concept to join a Facebook fan club. Like Pages 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. Early on, users had the option to "become a fan" of the page until 19 April 2010 when the option was later changed to "like" the page. While an individual with a personal profile can acquire up to 5,000 friends, a "Like Page" can have an unlimited number of "Likers". "Like Pages" can also be customized by adding new Tabs using the Static FBML application. This powerful feature can bring additional functionality to a page such as e-mail collection, specialized content, or a landing page for sales activity. The URLs of "Like Pages" start with
http://www.facebook.com/pages... and include the name of the page.News Feed
On 6 September 2006, Ruchi Sangvhi announced a new home page feature called News Feed. Originally, when users logged into Facebook, they were presented with a customizable version of their own profile. The new layout, by contrast, created an alternative 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. This has enabled spammers and other users to manipulate these features by creating illegitimate events or posting fake birthdays to attract attention to their profile or cause. 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. In 2011, Facebook updated the News Feed to show top stories and most recent stories in one feed, and the option to highlight stories to make them top stories, as well as to un-highlight stories. In response to users' criticism, Facebook later updated the News feed to allow users to view recent stories first.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." 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. 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" - in early February 2010 - came a total redesign of the pages, several new features and changes to News Feeds. 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.
Notifications
Notifications of the more important events, for example, someone sharing a link on the user's wall or commenting on a post the user previously commented on, briefly appear for a few seconds in the bottom left as a popup message (if the user is online), and a red counter is updated on the toolbar at the top, thus allowing the user to keep track of all the most recent notifications.Phone
On September 2010, rumors of a "Facebook Phone" similar to Google's Android, circulated in business and tech industry news. In an interview with well-known technology blog TechcrunchTechCrunch
TechCrunch is a web publication that offers technology news and analysis, as well as profiling of startup companies, products, and websites. It was founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, and was first published on June 11, 2005....
, CEO Mark Zuckerberg was noted to have said, "Our strategy is very horizontal. We're trying to build a social layer for everything," while denying that they were attempting to compete with the Apple iPhone or Android.
Photos
On April 11, 2011, Facebook launched a new feature for photo tagging - people can tag photos with a brand, product, company or person’s Facebook page, similar to the way they tag their friends in photos. In August 2011, Facebook announced that it would be adding a series of photo filters to its mobile application. Facebook plans to unveil nearly a dozen photo filters, which will be similar to Instragram's grainy images. Per last known numbers, today in the world, highest number of photos are hosted at Facebook. Unfortunately, as of yet, Facebook has not tied up with any photo printing companies to offer printed personalized gifts of the photos the users own. Though, there are companies that have modified their websites (example: smugmug.com) to fetch Facebook photos into your account to create a gift. A few applications have come up with unique way of offering an application on Facebook itself to create a personalized gift with Facebook photo (e.g. ezsnaps.com)Poke
The poke feature is intended to be a poke gesture (similar to "nudge" in instant messaging) to attract the attention of another user. Many Facebook users use this feature to attract attention or say "hello" to their friends. A previous version of Facebook's FAQ gave additional insight into the origin of the feature, stating: "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." Mark ZuckerbergMark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is chief executive and president...
during a live Facebook webinar.
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".
Smartphones
Many new smartphoneSmartphone
A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
s offer access to the Facebook services either through their web-browsers or applications. The Facebook iPhone-compatible web site was launched August 2007 and as of July 2008 over 1.5 million people used it regularly, at the point when a free application for the iOS named "Facebook for iPhone" was launched. 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. Version 3.0 was released in August 2009 and added features such as events, and uploading video with an iPhone 3GS
IPhone 3GS
-Camera:The iPhone 3GS features an improved 3 megapixel camera manufactured by OmniVision. In addition to the higher megapixel count, it also features auto-focus, auto white balance and auto macro and is capable of capturing VGA video...
.
In the latest update for the Facebook for iPhone app, GPS use is also integrated in the app under the section "places" in which you can discover moments and experiences when you and your friends are at the same place at the same time. This app is compatible with iPhone 3G, 3Gs, 4, and 4S running iOS 3.0 or later.
Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
developed an application for Facebook on their Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market...
platform, avalible in the Windows Phone Marketplace
Windows Phone Marketplace
Windows Phone Marketplace is a service by Microsoft for its Windows Phone 7 platform that allows users to browse and download applications that have been developed by third-parties...
. You can pin elements such as Messages, Events, the News Feed, and Photos directly onto your homescreen. It also includes tile notifications for events, friend requests, tags, and so on.
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
platform, including features such as messaging, uploading pictures and video straight from the device, managing profile information, contact integration allowing users to call anyone in their friends list that has their number in their profile information. It is also possible to add an chat feature to Windows Mobile via third-party software such as FIM, available in the Windows Mobile Marketplace.
Nokia
Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...
also offers a Facebook app on its Ovi Store
Ovi (Nokia)
Ovi by Nokia is the brand for Nokia's Internet services. The Ovi services can be used from a mobile device, computer or via the web. Nokia focuses on five key service areas: Games, Maps, Media, Messaging and Music. Nokia's aim with Ovi is to include third party developers, such as operators and...
for Nokia S60 devices such as the N97 and contains most of the functionality of the full website.
Google's Android 2.0 OS automatically includes an official Facebook app. The first device to use this is the Motorola Droid
Motorola Droid
The Motorola Droid is an Internet and multimedia enabled smartphone designed by Motorola, which runs Google's Android operating system. The Droid had been publicized under the codenames Sholes and Tao and the model number A855...
. The app has options to sync Facebook friends with contacts, which adds profile pictures and status updates to the contacts list. Research In Motion
Research In Motion
Research In Motion Limited or RIM is a Canadian multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada that designs, manufactures and markets wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market...
also offers a Facebook application for the BlackBerry
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
. It includes a range of functions, including an ability to integrate Facebook events into the BlackBerry calendar, and using Facebook profile pictures for Caller ID.
Feature phones
Although like all other website apps FacebookFacebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
made its presence on the smartphones as mentioned but also is present for the feature phone
Feature phone
A feature phone is a mobile phone that, like smartphones, combines the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone.Today's models typically also serve as portable media players and camera phones with touchscreen, GPS navigation, Wi-Fi and mobile broadband access.Feature phones is...
s. As the company said that the feature phones dominate the American cell phone markets hence an app was exclusively made for this purpose as well.
Status updates
Facebook has a feature called "status updates" (also referred to simply as "status") which allows users to post messages for all their friends to read. In turn, friends can respond with their own comments, and also press the "Like" button to show that they enjoyed reading it. A user's most recent status update appears on the user's wall, and is also noted in the "Recently updated" section of a user's friend list. Originally, the purpose of the feature was to allow users to inform their friends of their current "status" (for example, their current feelings, whereabouts, or actions) by referring to themselves in the third person (for example, "George is happy" or "John is with Robert at his house"). However, users are no longer required to write in the third person. Facebook originally prompted the status update with "Username is..." and Facebook users filled in the rest. This feature first became available in September 2006. However, on December 13, 2007, the requirement to start a status update with is was removed. The question "What are you doing right now?" was introduced. In March 2009, the status update question was changed from "What are you doing right now?" to "What's on your mind?" In 2009, Facebook added the feature to tag certain friends (or groups, etc.) within one's status update by adding an @ character before their name, turning the friend's name into a link to their profile and including the message on the friend's wall. Now, however, typing a friends name without any symbol beforehand will present you with a list of names matching the letters you inputted. This means that the "@" symbol is no longer needed.Ticker
In 2011, Facebook launched a ticker that showed all of their friends and pages updates. For example, it shows when their friends comment or like a status, and their status updates as soon as they posted them. If users do not have the chat sidebar open, the ticker appears on Facebook home next to the News Feed. If users do have the chat sidebar open, the ticker appears above the list of friends, and can be re-sized (it can't be if the chat sidebar isn't open). The ticker cannot be closed, and this has brought up concern among users, especially privacy concerns. However, Facebook has been keen to emphasize that the ticker only shows what people could see before - it just makes it "more discoverable".URL shortener
On December 14, 2009, Facebook launched its own URL shortener based on FB.me domain name. From that point on, all links based on facebook.com can be accessed after fb.me, which is seven characters shorter.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. Usernames are now available to any existing or newly registered user.According to the FAQ, "Facebook reserves the right to remove and/or reclaim any username at any time for any reason".
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 user's inbox, and are visible only to the sender and recipient(s) of the message, much like emailE-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
.
In July 2007, Facebook allowed users to post attachments to the Wall, whereas previously the Wall was limited to text only. In May 2008, the Wall-to-Wall for each profile was limited to only 40 posts. Recently Facebook has allowed users to insert html code in boxes attached to the wall via apps like Static FBML which has allowed marketers to track use of their fan pages with Google Analytics.
Questions
On March 24, 2011, Facebook announced that its new product - Facebook Questions - facilitates short, poll-like answers in addition to long-form responses, and also links directly to relevant items in Facebook's directory of "fan pages."Events
Facebook events are a way for members to let friends know about upcoming events in their community and to organize social gatherings. Events require an event name, network, host name, event type, start time, location, and a guest list of friends invited. Events can be Public or Private. Private events cannot be found in searches and are by invitation only. People who have not been invited cannot view a Private event's description, Wall or photos. They also will not see any Feed stories about the event. When setting up an event the user can choose to allow friends to upload photos or videos. Note that unlike real world events, all events are treated as separate entities (when the reality is some events sit inside other events, going to one event would preclude going to another, and so on).In February 2011, Facebook began to use the hCalendar microformat
HCalendar
hCalendar is a microformat standard for displaying a semantic HTML representation of iCalendar-format calendar information about an event, on web pages, using HTML classes and rel attributes....
to mark up events, and the hCard microformat
HCard
hCard is a microformat for publishing the contact details of people, companies, organizations, and places, in HTML, Atom, RSS, or arbitrary XML...
for the events' venues, enabling the extraction of details to users' own calendar or mapping applications.
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. The market place is available for all Facebook users and is currently free. In 2009, Facebook transferred ownership of the Marketplace to Oodle.Places
Facebook announced Places on August 18, 2010. It is a feature that lets users "check in" to Facebook using a mobile device to let a user's friends know where they are at the moment. This feature is already known from Foursquare, a social network where users share their geolocation data via mobile phones.In November 2010, Facebook announced "Deals", a subset of the Places offering, which allows for users to check in from restaurants, supermarkets, bars, and coffee shops using an app on a mobile device and then be rewarded discounts, coupons, and free merchandise. This feature is marketed as a digital version of a loyalty card
Loyalty program
Loyalty programs are structured marketing efforts that reward, and therefore encourage, loyal buying behavior — behavior which is potentially beneficial to the firm....
or coupon where a customer gets rewarded for loyal buying behavior.
Available countries: places is currently available only in some countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Canada, Cayman Islands, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, South Africa, Finland, Ireland, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Philippines, and Malaysia with many more on the way.
Supported phones: On October 10, 2010, Places became available on BlackBerry
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
, after iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
. The Android OS is also places capable. Other users, including Windows Mobile users, must use a HTML5 browser to use Places via Facebook Touch Site.
Discontinuation: Facebook Places was reported discontinued on August 24, 2011.
Platform
The Facebook Platform provides a set of APIs and tools which enable third-party developers to integrate with the "open graph" — whether through applications on Facebook.com or external websites and devices. Launched on May 24, 2007, Facebook Platform has evolved from enabling development just on Facebook.com to one also supporting integration across the web and devices.Facebook Platform Statistics as of May 2010:
- More than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries
- More than 550,000 active applications currently on Facebook Platform
- Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications
- More than 250,000 websites have integrated with Facebook Platform
- More than 100 million Facebook users engage with Facebook on external websites every month
Third party companies such as Adonomics, Kontagent and Mixpanel provide 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.
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. Tech blog Valleywag has criticized Facebook Applications, labeling them a "cornucopia of uselessness."[5] Others have called for limiting third-party applications so the Facebook "user experience" is not degraded.
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.
Questions
In May 2010, Facebook began testing Questions. Questions is an application in which users submit questions for their friends to answer. It is expected to compete directly with services such as Yahoo! AnswersYahoo! Answers
Yahoo! Answers is a community-driven question-and-answer site or a knowledge market launched by Yahoo! on June 28, 2005 that allows users to both submit questions to be answered and answer questions asked by other users...
.
Photos
One of the most popular applications on Facebook is the Photos application, where users can upload albums of photos, tag friends helped by face recognition technology, and comment on photos. According to Facebook,- 50+ billion user photos (in July 2010)
- More than 1.5 petabytePetabyteA petabyte is a unit of information equal to one quadrillion bytes, or 1000 terabytes. The unit symbol for the petabyte is PB...
s (1.5 million gigabytes) of photo storage used (in May 2009). - 220 million photos added each week which take up 25 terabytes of disk space (in May 2009).
- 3+ billion photo images served to users every day (in May 2007).
- 550,000+ images served per second during peak traffic windows (in May 2009).
Videos
During the time that Facebook released its platform, it also released an application 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, except the location of the friend in the video is not displayed. Users also have the option of video messaging. Videos cannot be placed in categories, whereas photos are sorted by albums. Facebook Video can support up to 1080p format and even 4K resolution.Languages
As of March 2011, Facebook supports the following languages:- AfrikaansAfrikaansAfrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
- BengaliBengali languageBengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
- Bahasa Melayu
- Bahasa Indonesia
- BulgarianBulgarian languageBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
- Bosnian
- Catalan
- CzechCzech languageCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
- Welsh
- Danish
- DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
- EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
- British EnglishBritish EnglishBritish English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
- American EnglishAmerican EnglishAmerican English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
- Indian EnglishIndian EnglishIndian English is an umbrella term used to describe dialects of the English language spoken primarily in the Republic of India.As a result of British colonial rule until Indian independence in 1947 English is an official language of India and is widely used in both spoken and literary contexts...
- English (Upside-down letters)
- English (Pirate)
- British English
- SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
- Castilian SpanishCastilian SpanishCastilian Spanish is a term related to the Spanish language, but its exact meaning can vary even in that language. In English Castilian Spanish usually refers to the variety of European Spanish spoken in north and central Spain or as the language standard for radio and TV speakers...
- Chilean SpanishChilean SpanishChilean Spanish is the variety of Spanish spoken in most of Chile. Though still entirely mutually intelligible with standard Spanish, Chilean Spanish has distinctive pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and slang usage...
- Español El SalvadorEl SalvadorEl Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
- Venezuelan SpanishVenezuelan SpanishVenezuelan Spanish is a dialect of the Spanish language spoken in Venezuela.Spanish was introduced in Venezuela by the conquistadors. Most of them were from Andalusia, Galicia, Basque Country, and the Canary Islands...
- Mexican SpanishMexican SpanishMexican Spanish is a version of the Spanish language, as spoken in Mexico and in various places of Canada and the United States of America, where there are communities of Mexican origin....
- Colombian SpanishColombian SpanishColombian Spanish is a term that refers to the varieties of Spanish spoken in Colombia. The term is of more geographical than linguistic relevance, since the dialects spoken in the various regions of Colombia are quite diverse...
- Castilian Spanish
- Filipino
- FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
- Canadian FrenchCanadian FrenchCanadian French is an umbrella term referring to the varieties of French spoken in Canada. French is the mother tongue of nearly seven million Canadians, a figure constituting roughly 22% of the national population. At the federal level it has co-official status alongside English...
- Canadian French
- KoreanKorean languageKorean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
- GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
- HungarianHungarian languageHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
- Croatian
- ChineseChinese languageThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
- NorwegianNorwegian languageNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
- PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
- PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
- Brazilian PortugueseBrazilian PortugueseBrazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....
- Brazilian Portuguese
- SerbianSerbian languageSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
- Romanian
- RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
- Slovene
- Slovak
- Thai
- VietnameseVietnamese languageVietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
- TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
- Finnish
- GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
- Hebrew
- Arabic
- Azerbaijani
- Lithuanian
- Estonian
- Bosnian
- EsperantoEsperantois the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
- Basque
- Faroese
- Irish
- Icelandic
- GalicianGalician languageGalician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
- Swahili
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- XhosaXhosa languageXhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
- Zulu
- Kurdish
- Leet Speak
- LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
- Albanian
- JavaneseJavanese languageJavanese language is the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. In addition, there are also some pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java...
- AymaraAymara languageAymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over three million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia...
- Cherokee
- SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
- Malagasy
- MalteseMaltese languageMaltese is the national language of Malta, and a co-official language of the country alongside English,while also serving as an official language of the European Union, the only Semitic language so distinguished. Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic...
- UzbekUzbek languageUzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 25.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia...
- Ukrainian
- Quechua
- Somali
- Tatar
- Yiddish
- Limburgish
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Japanese
- Mongolian
- TamilTamil languageTamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
- TeluguTelugu languageTelugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
Security features
On May 12, 2011, Facebook announced that it is launching several new security features designed to protect users from malware and from getting their accounts hijacked.Clickjacking warnings
Facebook will display warnings when users are about to be duped by clickjacking and cross-site scripting attacks in which they think they are following a link to an interesting news story or taking action to see a video and instead end up spamming their friends.Login Approvals
Facebook also offers two-factor authentication called "Login Approvals," which, if turned on, will require users to enter a code whenever they log into the site from a new or unrecognized device. The code is sent via text message to the user's mobile phone.Site warnings
Facebook is partnering with the free Web of Trust safe surfing service to give Facebook users more information about the sites they are linking to from the social network. When a user clicks on a potentially malicious link, a warning box will appear that gives more information about why the site might be dangerous. The user can either ignore the warning or go back to the previous page.FBML
Facebook Markup Language (FBML) is considered to be Facebook's own version of HTML. While many of the tags of HTML can be used in FBML, there are also important tags that cannot be used such as HTML, HEAD and BODY. Also, JavascriptJavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
cannot be used with FBML.
According to the Facebook Markup Language (FBML) Developer's page, FBML is now deprecated. No new features will be added to FBML and developers are recommended to develop new applications utilizing HTML, JavaScript and CSS. FBML support will end January 1, 2012 and FBML will no longer function as of June 1, 2012.
Gifts
Virtual gift
Virtual gift may refer to:* A gift consisting a picture of an item, instead of the item itself, usually through the internet....
feature to the website. Friends could send gifts, small icons of novelty items designed by former Apple designer Susan Kare
Susan Kare
Susan Kare is an artist and graphic designer who created many of the interface elements for the Apple Macintosh in the 1980s. She was also one of the original employees of NeXT , working as the Creative Director.-Background:Kare was born in Ithaca, New York and is the sister of aerospace engineer...
, 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
Given name
A given name, in Western contexts often referred to as a first name, is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family 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
Valentine's Day
Saint Valentine's Day, commonly shortened to Valentine's Day, is an annual commemoration held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions. The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine, and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496...
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
Susan G. Komen for the Cure
Susan G. Komen for the Cure, formerly known as The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, often referred to as simply Komen, is the most widely known, largest and best-funded breast cancer organization in the US....
. 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 planned to allow a wider variety of gifts in the future.
The built-in Gifts feature was removed on August 1, 2010, to allow Facebook to focus on more important website features. Existing gift-giving applications can be used as a replacement for the Gifts feature.