Social Sunday: A closer look at my Facebook settings

December 21, 2009 By

Courtesy flickr: bala_

So, the other day I promised you that I’d go over the settings I’m using within Facebook to manage my privacy. before we get to them, though, a few quick notes:

  1. My settings are not for everyone and this isn’t a “Best” or “most secure” type of guide. I use Facebook in two capacities at the same time (Business and pleasure) and that makes it rather tricky.
  2. I make extensive use of friend lists – something not everyone is comfortable with. People fall into only a single group (Well, for the purposes of privacy settings) and that often puts me into a tough spot when trying to decide where someone falls.
  3. My setting are never ‘finished’. I’ve spent hours refining where they are now, but there’s always one more thing to change here and there.

So – that all said, let’s take a look. It all starts with friend lists.

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Filed Under: Archives, Facebook, Methods

Managing Facebook: New Privacy Settings

December 17, 2009 By
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Courtesy flickr: chant3

So, back in August, I posted a story called Managing Facebook: A World Divided to talk all about how I’d done up my privacy settings, friend lists and so on. It was a set of rules, permissions and walls that I was happy and comfortable with.

And then, Facebook went and changed them all on me.

Now, there were a few major points to their most recent privacy update:

  1. All regional networks are gone. We are now one world, one Facebook.
  2. The granularization (Yeah – I think I made that one up) of wall posts and other privacy settings.
  3. The opening of select information to the public as a whole.

So much as I did back in August, I decided to go through the new bits piece by piece to figure out how I felt about them and how I could tweak them to my liking.

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Filed Under: Archives, Facebook, Methods

Managing Facebook: A World Divided

August 14, 2009 By

So, over the past week, my Facebook privacy settings have been the subject of conversation in a few places: In person at dinner, then again at a breakfast…On Twitter… On my blog comments and of course, on Facebook itself.

Facebook has always been an odd place for me. It’s the only place, really, where my ‘online’ and ‘offline’ worlds collide. Sure, some people I know from my ‘offline’ life are now on Twitter, or have connected through LinkedIn, but for the most part, Facebook is the place where those people are interacting with me. And I love that. It’s nice to have a place where my ‘offline’ world can gather and interact – pictures, wall posts, notes and everything. All of the people who I get together with for dinners, who my wife and I double-date with… who we go out with and have over… Plus past co-workers from my pre-web life… and old high school friends… It’s my spot for all of that.

But it’s also where a lot of my ‘online’ friends gather, too. While we’re all over Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, FriendFeed and who knows how many other networks, we’re in Facebook, too – so it’s expected that I’d be there for this type of activity, too. And this leaves Facebook right in the middle.

Now, several of my friends are stuck in this same boat… And to the best I can tell, there are three solutions. You either split your list by creating a second profile, you simply accept that the worlds are going to collide, or you try to manage it all under one profile using privacy settings. I chose to do the later and did so using friend ‘groups’. Here’s how:

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Filed Under: Archives, Facebook, Methods, Social Media

A Day Inside Facebook

April 2, 2008 By

Yesterday, I spent a large amount of time inside the website known as Facebook. Most of this time was spent browsing people’s profiles or managing how I was connected to people. I’ll likely do more of the same today, but I thought I’d report on what I did, and what the plans are.

Spring Cleaning

I started the day by removing the nearly 40 applications I wasn’t using. This brought me down to 22. Half of those are official, Facebook-created apps such as groups, and events, and 3 more are applications that I play a role in as a Developer. So I’m left with 8, really. Not bad.

I next went through and tweaked my Facebook privacy and limited profile settings. This was going to play a bigger role in my plans later in the day. I also moved a few things around on my profile, and tidied things up there.

Lunchtime Reading

I ate my soup and garlic bread while browsing the immense application directory. After recently removing applications, this might seem like an odd choice, but I wasn’t adding anything – yet. Facebook’s application platform (which, I promise, will be a whole post unto itself shortly) offers a lot of widely varying applications for use. I was looking for those that would help make my time insdie facebook more productive.

I’ve got a list and will be expermenting soon.

Managing People And Connections

More and more, Facebook is becoming my Rolodex. While some people use LinkedIn for this, Facebook allows me to not only connect to people, but to get a small glimpse into their lives and what they’re doing. For me, it’s really an advance marriage of LinkedIn and Twitter.

I’ve been making a big use of the friend groups within facebook to keep track of my connections, and a large amount of time (A few hours, in fact) went to re-organizing those. In all, I now have 37 of these groups. Some of these, like my “Canadian”, “American” and “International” cast wide nets, while other groups only have 3 or 4 people in them.

Every event I’ve attended (Except for one) has it’s own group, and people I met, or visited with, at an event goes into that group. This means that I can quickly pull up a group and see who was around. As I friend more people, I can then add them to their correct groups, and keep them sorted. Something I couldn’t do with my physical Rolodex. Not easily, anyway – and I tried.

When Worlds Collide

Facebook is, with the exception of email, the only place where my “work” world and my “real” world come together. It sure makes for an interesting dynamic when I sign in, too. It’s because of this that I’ve always been a heavy user of the limited profile option. People in my limited profile group, for example (Don’t check, you likely are) can’t see my friends list. Nor can they see photo galleries I post (Unless I specify they can) or my mailing addressor my home phone number.

I use the privace settings more to manage the fact that this is a place where two – very different – worlds come together and it allows me to be a complete goofball with my former room-mates, my wedding party, and my high school buddies, while being a complete goofball with new friends I’ve met through the world of social media. Sorting people took a LONG time, but it means that my Facebook world can have the balance it, apparently, needs.

Your Turn

I’m going to write more on my tricks within the Facebook walls soon (Including a full list of my privacy groups, and a look at my apps), but I want to know how you’re using the site. What does it bring to you? Who does it connect you with? What apps do you use? Why? Let me know.

Filed Under: Archives, Facebook, Personal, Rambles

Befriending in Facebook – The polite thing to do?

November 1, 2007 By

[ I had planned on posting on where I'd like to see PodCamp go - but I had a tooth pulled, and the meds from it are clouding my mind. So have this post about Facebook to kill some time. ]

So not long ago a few friends came into town and needed a place to stay for a night. Let’s, for sake of example, call them Jane and John.

My wife knew Jane from high school. They were good friends back then, and kept in touch, though from a distance, when they parted ways for university. While my wife (or I) didn’t have a facebook profile until earlier this year, shortly after she set her’s up, Jane was added. I’m not sure if Jane found her, or if she found Jane, but that minor detail doesn’t play a large role in where I’m going with this, so just stay with me here. They were friends on facebook, and that’s what counts.

Jane and John are now looking at relocating to Kingston, and wanted to come explore the city first. We offered them our spare bedroom while they learn the city, and have offered it up if they return for some apartment shopping. And this is where Facebook tied itself to real life in a way I didn’t really expect. My wife, who already had Jane in her friends list, added John too… And commented that “It seemed like the polite thing to do”. She hadn’t yet met John (Jane met him after leaving high school) but he was on her friends list.

I feel the situation has a lot to do with the personal trust network philosophy. My wife trusts Jane, Jane’s in a relationship with John, therefore, until she can make her own conclusions, my wife trusts John. I’ll admit too that, while the adds didn’t happen from me until they were here, it was a result of not making the effort, not a result of not willing to add them. I trust my wife, who trusts Jane, who trusts John. We’re at three degrees of separation here, but I was still willing to add him to my list.

So… was it the polite thing to do? Facebook is growing daily and certainly has mass appeal… But how does it now tie into our daily lives? Should I be adding everyone I’ve met and using it in a “life history” sense? Is anyone else using it that way? Facebook seems to have a lot to teach us, not only about others, but, it appears, about ourselves. What has it taught you?

Filed Under: Archives, Facebook, Personal