Facebook’s New Options In a Nutshell

Just in case you don’t have the time to go through the details, here’s a quick summary of the new features offered on Facebook that were just released today:

1. Facebook Groups

Features:

• Form and classify groups
• Group chat now available
• Mailing list allows updates via email
• Form a group email – anything sent to this mail will be updated on the group wall
• Only members can add others into the group
• Share docs
• Share content such as photos and videos you would only want to disclose to this group

Why would I use this?

• It’s a simpler way to create and maintain groups within smaller communities (i.e. colleagues, project group mates, room-mates and the like). Say you held a party (that you won’t want your boss to find out about), and you’d like to share pictures and snide comments – do it here.
• We’d like to say it makes collaboration simpler, but frankly, there are better tools out there for this. Shared documents have limited formatting options, and unlike Google docs it’s not compatible with Microsoft office. It’s best to leave work out of Facebook. Use it to organize social events… or keep up with the latest gossip in your circles.

  (Here’s an example of the Penn Olson team trying it out:)

2. Privacy Settings

(Not available at time of writing) Features:

• Single view of all the applications you’ve authorized and what data they use. (Privacy settings >> Applications & Websites (Edit your settings) >> Applications you use (Edit settings)
• See in detail when they last accessed your data.
• Customizable : You can change the settings for an application to make less information available to it, or you can even remove it completely.