• by ebony , October 8, 2010

Yesterday, Facebook made a big announcement! Ok. All they did was revamp the Groups feature. I'm so very very glad that it wasn’t the dreaded Facebook/Skype hybrid I heard from a friend.

Today, I decided to give the new feature a shot. I made a page for my family members so that we could all easily keep in touch. This is especially important and useful to me because I have a cousin at school in South Carolina and a sister in Evansville. I also lose my phone very frequently.

At first glance, I wasn’t sure what set this a part from all the other Facebook Groups I have been a part of in the past.

I personally invite people, post on a wall that only members can see, and send them various notifications. I read an article on Yahoo, however, that got me to thinking a little further about the possibilities that an application like this could provide.

I’ve been playing around with this all afternoon and after I upload a bunch of family photos hopefully my group members will feel the same. Which brings up another good point, I love the fact that the groups are closed. This can significantly cut down on the amount of clutter that happens when groups are left open to your entire friends list.

I am also EXTREMELY excited to see a group chat feature. I’ve wanted Facebook to do something like that for some time now.

In his blog to users, Mark Zuckerburg said that a part of the decision to premiere Groups was to give members ‘more control’. Apparently a number of people have had issues with organizing because less than 5% of Facebookers used the former friend’s lists application.

I know that for me, having to go through the over 1,000 people in my network to categorize where I knew them from sounded like a complete waste of time. I am so pleased that I know have an easier solution.

In addition to Groups announcement, we now have a way to download to our computer anything and everything that we have posted on Facebook.

“…we've built an easy way to quickly download to your computer everything you've ever posted on Facebook and all your correspondences with friends: your messages, Wall posts, photos, status updates and profile information. If you want a copy of the information you've put on Facebook for any reason, you can click a link and easily get a copy of all of it in a single download. To protect your information, this feature is only available after confirming your password and answering appropriate security questions.”

I'm not sure what the utility is for this or if one even exists. Honestly, I hope that the privacy settings are iron clad because I foresee a few issues already.

All in all, I am having a fabulous time with the Groups feature and applaud Facebook for their efforts to keep us all addicted involved.