Brief Facebook History

Let’s start with a brief history of Facebook. It was invented by Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 as a way to network with his fellow students. By March of 2004, approximately half of Harvard’s undergraduate population was using the service. How many users do you think Facebook has today? Over 500 million users! Pretty incredible.

Facebook Basics

Let’s begin with the basics. How to create a Facebook account ? You start by going to the www.facebook .com website.  To sign up, you simply fill out your name, your email, what you want your password to be, your sex, and your birthday! You will then have to enter a security code, and confirm your email and your password. It’s as simple as that! . Once that step is done, you need to properly set up your profile. To do this, go to your email account, open the verification email from Facebook, and click on the verification link.  While you can add friends right away, you may want to fully set up your profile first so that people can identify you.  To do this once you have logged in, you can click on view and then edit profile. You can enter in as much or as little information as you want. Most people choose to enter their name, birthday, some form of contact information, where they went to school, and/or where they work.   

Above is a picture which will show you one of the screens you will encounter while entering information. You can also join the network of the city in which you live, or, for example, the school of which you go to. This will allow you to easily find friends in the same network. Your primary network is displayed underneath your name and Facebook uses the network to rank search results. To join a college or employer network, you must register your Facebook account using a valid email address for the college or place of employment. One network will be your primary network, but you have can also have several secondary networks. For example, with my personal profile, I got it while I was attending Western, so UWO is my primary network. Since I live in London, the London network is my secondary network. To join a network, you click “settings,” “account settings” “network” and then search for the network you want to join. Once you find it, simply click “join!” On your profile, you can also click upload a profile picture and browse and select a photo on your computer that will be shown representing you on your page. Here is a picture of what that screen will look like.

Once you are done entering information, you simply click Done Editing. It is important to note that you can go back and change any information at any time.  There are several different ways to add friends on Facebook, but I am only going to review the most basic way.  At the top of the page, there is a search field. You simply type in the name of the person you are looking for, and click search. The first results to show up will be those matching the name within your network.  This will be followed by those you share mutual friends with. Once you find the right person, you simply click “Add to Friends.” A message which looks like this will pop up.

And to answer your question, sadly, no, I do not have Leonardo DiCaprio as a Facebook friend. I wish!

To show you an example of a finished profile, We'll show you the tech-ER facebook page found here,  go to Info.  Scroll down, you can see all the information listed.  As I mentioned before, you can enter in as much or as little as you want. Here they have chosen to list a lot of information, including a contact phone number and email address.  Other than your personal information, let’s look at the other aspects of the profile page. Once again, I’ll get Lou to pull up the page. Click on “Wall”. Here we have the facebook wall. This is perhaps the most important aspect of Facebook, as it is the primary method of communication. This is where your friends can post messages to you, and you in turn can respond to them! Your wall is also the place that shows all your recent Facebook actions. If you post photos, edit information, or write or comment on someone else’s wall or photograph, it will show up here. It is worth noting that if you don’t like what someone has posted on your wall, you are free to delete it.  Pulling up the tech-ER Wall again, To the left on the main wall page, you will see a Friends tab, which shows all the Facebook friends you have. To write on a friends wall, simply click on that friend, pull up their page, type a message in the box at the top of the page, and click Share.

Photos are another important aspect of Facebook. Click on the photos page. Here, we can see all the different albums that have been uploaded to the tech-ER page. You can see that there are several albums available. One can upload many albums to facebook, and it is a fun way to update people on your life! Speaking of albums, let’s review how to create one. Under the photo tab, you simply click “Add album.” You then add the title of the album, and any general comments you may have regarding this set of pictures. You can also decide who you want to be able to see this album. We will talk more about privacy options later. Click “Create Album.” Select the photos you want to include in the album by browsing in the photos on your computer, and check the ones you would like to add. Click upload. You can write a caption for each photo if you like. You may also tag people in your photos. Here is a picture of this.

To tag, simply click on their face in the photo, and a box will pop up. Type their name, and then hit “Tag.” This picture will now be linked to their page. Choose one of the photos as your album cover, and save. You now have a brand new facebook album!

Facebook and Privacy

Let’s move on to another important aspect. Privacy settings. You might have heard that media-savvy employers like to investigate potential employees on Facebook, and that people can get into trouble by posting or being linked to certain wall posts or photos. While you can’t really control what others post of you, you can control your link to it or who sees it. To set who can see your profile information, go to the “Account” tab and click “Privacy settings.” Lou, could you do that for us please? For every specific field, you can select who sees it, by clicking either Everyone, Friends of Friends or Only Friends. Facebook allows you to customize your settings so that you can control exactly who sees what component of your profile. For example, if you want only your friends to be able to see your photos and videos you are tagged in, you can select that option. The privacy settings are great because they are so flexible, and they definitely make you feel more secure. You can even control how people search for you on Facebook, by clicking on “Connecting of Facebook” and “View Settings.” You can make it so that only certain people can search for and find you, send you a friend request, send you messages, etc. When you are finished modifying your privacy settings, you simply click save changes. And again, you can change these at any time! Another simple way to modify your privacy is if someone tags you in a photo or a video that you don’t like, or don’t want to be linked to, simply untag yourself. That way, your name will no longer be linked to it! I can’t stress enough how important it is to be careful about how much information you share and who you share it with!

Facebook Status Updates

Let’s move on. Now, I am going to talk about how to update your Facebook status. Your status on facebook is a way to update those who can see your profile with what you are up to at the current time. For example, my status right now could be “taping a segment for tech-ER!” To change your facebook status, you simply go to your home page, write in the box at the top, and click “Share.” Lou, could you do this for us please on the Tech E.R. facebook page? Thank you! It is always fun to read people’s statuses, as they don’t usually bother updating them if they are doing something boring! It’s entirely your choice how often to do this, and, as usual, you can control who sees it. While we are on the homepage, let’s explain a bit more about the features available to you there. At the top of your homepage, which I will get Lou to pull up again for us, you will see it says “News Feed.” This is because on the homepage, the activity of all your facebook friends (who have chosen to make this visible) is displayed. For example, when someone changes a status, posts on another friends wall, posts new photos or videos, it automatically shows up here. This is what you see when you first log into Facebook, and it is a great way to stay current with your friends’ activities, as it is easier and less time consuming than searching their individual profiles.

Summary

Once you have joined Facebook, you will wonder how you ever managed without it. It is a great networking tool, and, as I’ve said, a fantastic way to stay in touch with friends you no longer see on a regular basis. And, you will be in good company. Even The Queen and The Pope have Facebook! Facebook has caught on so much that it is even becoming a verb.

Happy Facebooking, everyone!