With news today that Facebook is now valued at a small chunk of change (aka $70 billion), I thought I’d take a look at it again.
My opinion of Facebook used to be very radical and I stubbornly refused to sign up. Then a couple years ago I decided to sign up and I have not looked back. Now I’m starting to revisit my opinion on it as Facebook starts to introduce more invasive features such as “Auto-tagging” which is based on facial recognition software. Why am I mentioning this you ask. I, like a growing number of Facebook users are starting to wean ourselves off Facebook because of this. It has been a trivial battle thus far and when I think I make progress I run into new ways to use this dominant service. It also doesn’t help that Twitter is becoming really popular and I’ve integrated the two, as well as Google is taking another swing with its recently announced social network called Google Plus (I will review this shortly). So without further ado, here are some useful Facebook tips and tricks to make your Facebook experience more useful, efficient and fun.
1. Download Facebook Photo Albums
There are some great photo albums out there that your friends have but it’s a pain to click on each photo and save it separately. That’s where Fotobounce comes in. It is a desktop application that allows you to download the photo albums. The great thing is it supports facial recognition so that saves time with the tagging. The difference between this and the Facebook feature is it does not have access to every other Facebook user so some random person who looks like your best friend will not be tagged in these photos.
2. Featured Friends
An underutilized feature on Facebook is the Friends tab on the left sidebar. You can customize this to only show certain friends (i.e. best friends, family…). To do this, click edit right by the Friends box. Under the Featured Friends tab, click “Create a new list”. Select all the friends you want on the list, and name it. Then click “Add an existing list or group” to add to it to your profile.
3. Remove Facebook Ads
This really should have been number one but I was too lazy to switch things around. This only works on Firefox and if you have the add-on Greasemonkey. Then you use that and install a script called Facebook Cleaner. Once it’s installed, and this takes seconds, go to Facebook and all the ads will have vanished. It reduces the clutter by a lot and makes the user interface a lot more pleasing although deep down inside I feel like something is missing.
4. Auto-Share Blog Posts
This one is only really for people like me, who own a website of some sort and would like to auto-share their posts. I just downloaded a plug-in called BlogUpp, and after following their instructions, my auto-sharing went on without a hitch. They also auto-share to all your Twitter followers which is great.
5. Access Facebook Chat on your Desktop
A lot of people have switched completely from MSN to Facebook chat (me included). Even though it is bare bones, it somehow has taken over a feature rich application such as MSN which is not something that usually happens in this world. Maybe simple is really better. In any case, if you are solely going onto your web browser just for Facebook chat, I highly suggest using a program called Gabtastik which is a desktop application that allows you to chat to your Facebook friends without opening a browser.
I will update the list as I continue to unearth the gems of Facebook but if you readers out there have any you’d like to share, comment away.
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