Yesterday, Facebook made several cosmetic and functional changes to its site, which seems to be the norm for the popular social networking site just about every few months. According to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the new redesign should make for a much richer user experience. But according to most Facebook users, it’s just one more new thing to learn — just when you were starting to get used to the old way.
Here’s the skinny on the new updates:
NEW GROUPS –
Facebook has revamped its GROUP concept, making it more intimate and controllable. The new Groups are designed to be used by family members, school groups, etc., and not for social causes or political rallies, as is allowed now. Now you can put all your Farmville friends into one group and communicate just with them. Groups will also have privacy settings, meaning they can be open and public; closed and not available to the public; or secret, meaning that no one can see who is in a group or that it even exists. Another noticeable change is you won’t just be able to click to join any group you want. Nope. Now, you’ll have to be formally invited by another member. Membership in each group will also be limited to 250 people max.
“DOWNLOAD YOUR INFORMATION” –
Facebook members now have the option to download a complete ZIP file archive of everything they’ve ever uploaded to Facebook. That includes user profile data, photos, videos, wall posts, notes, comments, friend lists, EVERYTHING! This file can then be kept on your hard drive, but only accessible via a strict system of passwords and e-mail address verifications. This feature would come in handy for anyone needing to port all their data from one profile to another.
THIRD PARTY APP DASHBOARD –
Facebook now provides a way to manage which applications you’re connected to and which data permissions have been granted to them, with a left column dashboard including what data has been accessed by each application. This will especially come in handy for anyone who’s concerned about providing too much information to unknown third party sources.
Facebook has already started rolling out the new changes to some of its members. But everyone should see the updates on their page within the coming days.
