December 20, 2007

Orkut gained immense popularity in our country, and now it’s Facebook’s turn. Facebook is a social networking website, like Orkut. It was made in 2004, originally restricted to members with a college/university email address. This is one of the reasons why people in Pakistan were unaware of it. Though there were some people who had college IDs and managed to make an account on Facebook. However, now the scenario is different, since Facebook is open to all, everyone can join it. This is one of the main reasons why it is gaining popularity day by day.

Statistics show that Facebook is the second most visited networking website on the worldwide web. It has over 28 million members and more and more people joining everyday!

Facebook isn’t just one big site; it’s made up of lots of separate networks based on different communities such as schools, companies and regions. If you join Facebook, you will have to select a network out of the already available ones. In case you are not linked to any of the networks available, there is an option of ‘none’.

When you log in, the home page will show you all the latest news and activities from your friends in your “News Feed”. Some might feel that it is annoying but you can restrict your news from going on to other people’s News Feed by deleting it from your Mini Feed on your own profile.

Both Facebook and Orkut are socialising websites but Facebook is different in many ways. The best thing about Facebook is that strangers, those who aren’t in your friends list, cannot see your profile and pictures. It also gives you the liberty to make as many albums and upload as many pictures as you want, without the fear that strangers will copy them.For communication and messaging every member has a wall in their profile, it’s like the scrapbook. People can come and post anything they want to say on your wall. People can make and join groups, which are quite similar to communities, and can express what they feel about a certain aspect over there.

You can also share your thoughts by writing notes or importing your external blogs. Another unique feature of Facebook is your “status”. This allows your friends and acquaintances to know what you are doing and how you are feeling.

Facebook is a social networking site and hence it is public; however, it does allow you to have certain amount of privacy too. You can block unwanted contacts and can create a “Limited Profile” to hide certain sections of your profile from specific individuals.

There are some add-on features/applications available as well on Facebook that you can add in your profile. One of them is the top friends application. This allows you to choose your top (best) friends and make a separate section for them. Another is the graffiti application. With this you can draw on your friend’s graffiti wall. The horoscope application gives you a new updated horoscope everyday. The list of applications goes on and is increasing everyday. These applications are devised to make your Facebook experience more interesting.