Getting Face-to-Face with Facebook
Stuff happens on the Internet at a fast and furious pace these days, and sometimes it’s hard to keep up. If you haven’t yet had a chance to catch up with the Facebook phenomenon, this Facebook primer is for you.
What is Facebook?
Facebook is a popular Web site that for many people today defines online social networking. The lure of Facebook and other social networking sites is that they provide a way for people to easily stay in touch with each other and keep up with changes in their lives.
Facebook reports it currently has more than 175 million active users worldwide. And it’s not just for teenagers and young adults — many use Facebook to market their business or organization. The fastest-growing Facebook demographic is now people 30 years and older.
Signing Up
The first time you visit www.facebook.com you are prompted to sign up and create a new account. It’s free — no credit card is required. On the sign-up page, you’ll also see that Facebook offers a separate option for creating a page for a business, band or celebrity.
After you create an account, you will receive a confirmation e-mail that includes a link to the registration wizard, which guides you through the entire Facebook registration process. During the registration process, Facebook encourages you to join one or more networks to discover more about the people around you. Facebook networks are based on a workplace, region, high school or college.
Creating an account is the first step, but the real fun comes from connecting with other Facebook users you know. Adding other users as Facebook friends allows you to share your lives online. In Facebook, this takes the form of posting messages, personal photos and videos, interesting Web site links and “status updates” — quick blurbs describing what you are currently doing, thinking or feeling. Facebook also lets you send e-mails to friends and engage in real-time chat (instant messaging).
- You can have Facebook search your e-mail contacts. If Facebook can match any of your contact e-mail addresses to existing Facebook users, it sends friendship invitations to those users. This feature works only with widely used e-mail domains, however.
- You can enter a name in the search box and have Facebook display all Facebook users with that name. You can filter your search by former high school classmates, former and current college classmates, and former and current co-workers.
- You can have Facebook search for other Facebook users from among your instant message contacts by importing your AOL instant messaging (AIM) and Windows Live contacts.
