Facebook fanatics
Facebook may have gone some way to pacify privacy protestors with a new ‘Download Your Information' feature that lets users securely store their uploaded archive and a dashboard to monitor user information surrendered to apps.
According to the Facebook blog, the download tool allows Facebook users to make a ZIP file with all their profile info, videos, photos, wall notes, comments, lists - everything they have uploaded to the site. In a move that should make people with privacy concerns a little happier, users can keep their file on their own computer and there are plenty of security settings like e-mail address verification, passwords and Captchas.
Users can now also upload hi-res pictures to the site which could make the ‘download your information' feature more attractive as users could use the service as more of a basic storage option. The download tool can be found in ‘account settings' and will be rolled out from today.
In another move that seems to appease privacy protestors, the site has also launched a dashboard to let users see how apps use personal data.
"As you start having more social and personalized experiences across the web, it's important that you can verify exactly how other sites are using your information to make your experience better," said Mark Zuckerberg, writing in the blog.
The oft-criticised ‘privacy settings' will include a single view of all the apps a user has authorised and what data they have given up. It is designed to be a simpler way for users to change the settings for an app and make less information available or delete it the app all together.
"We've heard loud and clear that you want more control over what you share on Facebook-to manage exactly who sees it and to understand exactly where it goes....with the tools we're rolling out today, we're taking a few important steps forward towards giving you precise controls," he added.
The social networking giant has also overhauled its groups functionality. Zuckerberg said: "The biggest problem in social networking is helping you easily interact with your friends and share information in lots of different contexts."
In a bid to address this problem, the new groups tool allows users to share photos and videos with just with their familiy, friends or co-workers.
"We've long heard that people would find Facebook more useful if it were easier to connect with smaller groups of their friends instead of always sharing with everyone they know. For some it's their immediate family and for others it's their fantasy football league, but the common concern is always some variant of, "I'd share this thing, but I don't want to bother 250 people. Or my grandmother. Or my boss," said Zuckerberg.
The new version of ‘Groups' allows users to create ‘private spaces' for small groups (up to 250 members) and the default setting is closed so only members of the group can see what's going on.
The private group spaces let users post photos, collaborative documents, converse and group chat with members who are online, in what some people may think resembles Google Wave...which flopped.
In another blog, Daniel Chai, a Facebook engineer in the Groups team, said the new tool is easy to use as all users have to do is ‘create a group, add friends and start sharing' and then all members will receive a notification when a group member makes a post.
He also said that people can use Groups as a replacement for mailing lists as they can be set up to send an email notification and group emails.
