New Facebook Features Announced: See What They Mean For You

Facebook unveiled three new features designed to help users to better control the information they share via Facebook.

The social networking site revamped its Groups feature, created a new tool called "Download Your Information," and rehauled its dashboard to allow users to better understand what data their Facebook applications are using.

Find out more about these new features--and what they mean for you--in the slideshow below. What do you think of the new tools? Are they helpful? Will you use them? Weigh in below.

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Facebook has launched a new feature called "Download Your Information" that, according to Facebook, lets you "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." The feature will begin rolling out on Wednesday, October 6. To take advantage of the new tool, go to "Account," then "Account Settings" followed by "Learn more" next to the "Download Your Information" option. After this, click the green "Download" button. You'll receive an email when your information is ready for download.

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Facebook has launched a new feature called "Download Your Information" that, according to Facebook, lets you "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."

The feature will begin rolling out on Wednesday, October 6. To take advantage of the new tool, go to "Account," then "Account Settings" followed by "Learn more" next to the "Download Your Information" option. After this, click the green "Download" button. You'll receive an email when your information is ready for download.

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Comments

[SarahSoda]

05:52 PM on 10/10/2010

Hey all you Facebook "users." Facebook is only marginally about who you're friends with. You are not the consumer of the product. You are the one being consumed. Businesses can't wait to find out all about you and what you "like" so they can data mine all the personal information about you that you have so conveniently provided to them for their use. Ever wonder why it's free?

Think about it.

[lalilyman]

10:12 PM on 10/09/2010

what I don't love about Facebook is that everyone sounds exactly the same. it's the great equalizer. long cherished friend or met you last night at a party. folks randomly pop up. and everyone kind of talks in the same tone of voice - it's the culture of the space, the language of the space, and it's kind of dumb or at best clever. but not really moving or thoughtful. doesn't have the charge of one to one communication. it's all kind of performance - you never really know who is going to be reading your posts and interactions. I don't really like it, though I increasingly depend on it because that's where my friends are increasingly hanging out .... saw the movie though, not impressed.

[yabu]

03:54 PM on 10/09/2010

WTF is Facebook good for? It's a mess just like this planet. If you want to torture me force me to spend 12 nanoseconds on Facebook.

[MikeSinAZ]

10:36 AM on 10/09/2010

Don't mean a thing! Don't use it, never will . . . don't tweet either. To quote Aaron Sorking, "Facebook is to relationships as reality TV is to reality."

[Loki11467]

09:34 AM on 10/09/2010

I knew this update for Groups was a slimy piece of BS. And thanks to Huff Post for unwittingly outing them. The key is the Open Graph. If you are on an Open Graph site and you click the Like button, whether you realize it or not that gives that website permission to send Ads directly to your Live Feed as often as they want. Since so few people are doing this, it seems if you are a private person and you join a group, and a member clicks Like off site, it will unlock the group's feed for Advertisers to spam!

[Seafarer61]

06:47 AM on 10/09/2010

Betty White said it best.

[DoubtingTobi]

01:02 AM on 10/09/2010

I think it would have been better to expand on the friends "lists" already in existence rather than further complicating an already overly complicated site with new features ("groups") that sound like pre-existing features and yet are different.

[VanessaFas]

12:16 AM on 10/09/2010

So, the big question is, how safe is it for us to use? And what are they promising this to us now for?

[bradwestley]

07:19 PM on 10/08/2010

Come on people, it is the 500,000,000 plus idiots around the world who join and make Facebook rich!!

[GEM-592]

06:33 PM on 10/08/2010

Talk about a bubble. After all the improvements take effect, they're going to call it "myspace 2.0"

[Jason Gilbert]

05:18 PM on 10/08/2010

Very interesting and informative story, thank you

[Meathead]

10:10 AM on 10/08/2010

First, in the 1980s there was Prodigy. It was the first dominator of the online world. Then came CompuServe and it outcooled the Sears-owned Prodigy. Then AOL brought millions online and was the undefeatable giant and for about a decade it was the internet for all of us. Netscape took the wheel for a while, then Microsoft, then Yahoo as the www blossomed and the AOL exodus began. Today it is a battle between Facebook, Google, and iTunes. If Mark thinks he is immortal he is Zucker.

[markstl3828]

09:47 AM on 10/08/2010

I quit using facebook over two months ago. It's a waste of time. If these people from the past were so important, you would not have lost touch with them in the first place.

[GEM2010]

10:51 PM on 10/08/2010

You summed up my sentiments Mark. I found myself spending way too much time updating my FB page and reconnecting with folks that I realized I had no desire to reconnect with - deleted my account. It is a HUGE time critter, actually "disconnects" us from real f2f connections and encourages folks to abandon all common boundaries. Bad news all around.

[lcr999]

01:17 AM on 10/08/2010

Facebook just doesn't get it. So now my friends can sign me up for groups that I dont agree to. So, i have one friend who is a pervert, and now all of a sudden I am in a group of perverts. Or , heaven forbid, one of them is a tea bagger !!! :-( Opt out is crapp.

For me, facebook is a waste of good electrons.

[nola70119]

11:59 PM on 10/07/2010

I do not get all the FaceBook hate. It does what it is meant to do: connect people in an easy and ready fashion. What people choose to do with that is up to them. It is not a demagogue so give it a rest.

[BlackYowe]

02:27 AM on 10/08/2010

It's because its not cool. To me It's like hating a telephone book because its not cutting edge, its so lame. LOL.

[ehrhartjohn]

04:57 PM on 10/09/2010

I agree. I was born and raised on Guam. So many of us from there lost track of each after moving to various parts of the states and other countries. We have assembled a very large network of friends and acquaintances on Facebook and keep up with what is going on out in the islands in ways you could not do through the news.