What is Facebook?
On their website, www.facebook.com, Facebook describes itself as ‘a social utility that connects you with the people around you,’ which pretty much sums it up, Facebook is a website for socializing and browsing. By socializing I mean commenting and playing games with friends, and by browsing I mean looking at pictures and friends profiles. Although Facebook is advertised as a socializing website it of course is only a social networking site, designed to keep in contact with mates and family, sharing photos and organising events, so not quite as social as actually meeting up with mates and family!
What is Facebook used for?
Profiles
A profile is the part of the site which you are in-charge of. You can upload photos, contact friends, comment friends, add applications, your interests, email, contact details, education history and much much more! For more info check out the info on profiles on the Facebook site!
Photos
Originally Facebook was designed for sharing photos and then over time it expanded. Facebook is ideal for uploading photos and sharing them with friends, however to upload the photos and view them you must be a member and logged into Facebook. It is quick and easy to upload photos and view your friends photos. You can also ‘tag’ the photos, so that when you browse over the faces in a photo it tells you who they are. All photos are organised into albums for easy use. For more information on photos on Facebook visit the photos part of the Facebook site tour, on their website.
Messaging
Facebook has a very good messaging service, you can either message using the mailing system (similar to emails) or write on people’s facebook wall. The mailing system works very simply, all you do is select a friend you wish to mail, type in your message and click send. This is a very good way to contact people when you want your message to be private or if you want to have a group discussion about something. On their profile everybody has a wall, this is simply a place to leave messages for your friends. All messages are visible to anyone who is a friend of either person.
Event Organising
It is extremely easy to organise an event on Facebook, (by organising an event I mean inviting people, not booking a table or cinema tickets etc). All you do is click events, create an event, fill in the details and invite your friends. You can make the event with the option of your friends inviting their friends along, so they can add themselves or so that the event is secret and only those who are invited know about it through Facebook.
Groups
You can create groups on Facebook, which is basically getting people together to support something, some more serious than others, for example, ‘Jeremy Clarkson should be Prime Minister,’ ‘Stop the Traffik,’ ‘It Was Try,’ ‘It isn’t Christmas until the Coke advert is shown on TV,’ and ”Harold Bishop – Legend’.
Who uses Facebook?
Facebook is used by thousands of people of all ages all over the world but originally Facebook was used by the younger generation of people to keep in contact with mates etc. Although people of all ages use Facebook, it is prominently used by those of the younger generation.
Why is it popular?
Facebook is so popular because it is so easy to use and also a simple way to keep in touch with friends from work, school, college, university etc, and of course the beloved family. It is also a great place to keep in touch with friends and family from other parts of the world, sharing photos and seeing what they are up keeps you in touch! Also compared to its competitors Facebook is far easier to use and get to grips with.
Why Facebook?
Like most companies there are competitors, the main to competitors for Facebook are ‘Bebo‘ and ‘MySpace‘. I am registered to all three and am fairly experienced on all of them. I personally consider Facebook to be far better than Bebo and MySpace for many reasons. Firstly the layout on Facebook is far simpler to use, and recently MySpace and Bebo have realised this and re-arranged their layout along with copying many of the features from Facebook. Also the general running of the site is much quicker, for example on Bebo you can only upload 5 photos at a time and it will take a minute or so to load those 5 photos, and on MySpace it takes a few minutes to upload up to 5MB of photos, where as on Facebook it will take about one minute to upload 60 photos!
Security Advice
Here are 3 tips that I use to help make sure my details I put on Facebook are secure:
- Don’t add anyone you don’t know.
- Be careful with what information you share.
- Be careful what photos you add- perspective employers have been known to check social networking sites before they interview someone, as are universities.
For more suggestions about security on Facebook check out their Site Tour Privacy Section!
To borrow the words of a well known telecomms company “It’s good to Facebook!”