Where can I find a manual for Facebook?

[Mike Feury]

"If no such thing exists, I'm curious why not. ". The answer is simple: Because it's constantly changing.

I agree, it's in FB's interest to keep things 'labyrinthine' and changing. The general response rates to FB's ads are way below web norms, so the last thing FB needs is easy ways for people to hide their info from advertisers, or easy ways for writers to describe how to do it, or software to do it. No ads = no FB.

[BigDocD]

A few years ago, just after Facebook was getting a lot of really negative publicity about the site's security, a lady by the name of Angela Alcom wrote a manuscript called "The Unofficial Facebook Privacy Manual". I believe it was available either at www.MakeUseOf.com or www.netsavoir.com . I don't know whether it's still around or not, or how up-to-date it might be. That's the only reference I've ever seen except for, of course, the Facebook site itself, which isn't that easy to follow.

[happed in mist]

There are lots of books about Facebook - have a look at Amazon; the UK site gave me 2922 hits. Here are a few.

Facebook For Dummies
Facebook Application Development For Dummies
Facebook for Business: How to Create a Facebook Business Page That Works -- From the Basics to Using Facebook's Advanced Mark Up Language (FBML)
How to Do Everything: Facebook Applications
Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day
Facebook: The Missing Manual (Missing Manuals)
Facebook for the Older Generation
Sams Teach Yourself Facebook for Business in 10 Minutes: Covers Facebook Places, Facebook Deals and Facebook Ads (Sams Teach Yourself...in 10 Minutes)
Facebook Cookbook: Building Applications to Grow Your Facebook Empire
Facebook for the Computer Illiterate: An Absolute Beginners Guide to Mastering Facebook
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Facebook

Not that I think you need a book - as someone else pointed out, there is a help system. And it's easy and fun, and I can see what my siblings and my kids and my former students are doing. Why do you all attack it so?

[jscher2000]

I used to keep my own grouping of my Family so I could find them easily, and they replaced it with their "Family" group which seems to require a DNA test to set up...

I try to avoid "family" requests and just use my own friend groupings for privacy reasons. Perhaps you need to use a name other than "family" to make that work.

[northwood2222]

Why do you all attack it so?

For me, because I don't like being treated as a commodity.
Before you say "well don't use it", you should know that I don't.
Getting rid of my account was a nightmare.

[eikelein]

I think you're probably missing the point of the site .... It's a social-consumption website - it's event oriented. If something happens, facebook tells you about it, and you can respond to said event appropriately....

I guess what I'm saying is that if you're looking at facebook from a task standpoint you probably need to change viewpoints a little. Most of your time on Facebook is spent consuming rather than producing ....

The other product I associate it most with in this context is Google Reader. Primary function: showing you things you want to read.

Hope that made sense. :S

Thanks, fphhotchips!

That truly is sort of enlightening to me, I never looked at it this way!

Now talking only about Facebook pages of people I genuinely care about: What I see there is often rather "mindless chatter" by tons of people I have never met and may not even want or care to meet. I am an old timer and thrive on conversations, exchange and contributing information in both directions.

The whole concept of "consuming" doesn't too sit well with me anyway, so here seems to be at least part of my problem.

Thanks again.

[GentleBen]

I have a small "Facebook for Dummies" (mini edition). It was written in 2010 by Leah Pearlman and Carolyn Abram, Facebook Product Managers. It was published by Wiley Publishing.

[tandemterry]

Facebook has a dismal reputation when it comes to privacy issues. This is evidently a problem that starts at the top, with Facebook co-founder, President, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Nick Bilton summed it up neatly in a Tweet:
Off record chat w/ Facebook employee. Me: How does Zuck feel about privacy? Response: [laughter] He doesn’t believe in it.
This does not appear to be a new development, either. In 2003, when Facebook was called “The Facebook” and Zuckerberg operated it from his Harvard dorm room, he said some regrettable things in an IM conversation about users of the fledgling social networking site, according to a SocialMediaNews article:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard.
Just ask. I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
(Friend): What? How’d you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it. I don’t know why.
They “trust me”
Dumb f**ks.

[CaptainKen]

The only manual that you could ever hope to be up-to-date would be some type of online help, such as what Adobe provides for Photoshop. As many have pointed out FB changes to frequently, so don't waste money on buying a book.

They just had major updates to the FB iPhone app that actually comes close to a joy to use. The new UI is very nice!

[John259]

Sorry to drift OT but Twitter can actually be quite useful if you regard it as a simple RSS reader and use it to follow a variety of reputable news sources such as broadcasters and newspapers.

[roundperson]

Go to About.com click on the category letter 's' then click on Social Media. The Personal Web page that comes up has a Facebook tutorial link.

[JackSprat]

Lots of chatter here about books and other sources of help for FB. However, the original question was about FB having its own help or tutorial. When I have a problem with MS Word, say in doing a mailmerge, I don't want to go to a store or library to get a book - I want to get help from the product's internal or online Help.

The online Help for FB sucks. FB is fixed or patched so frequently that it is now a mess of patches and fixes. It was not created as a logical application, with a project plan - it was thrown together rapidly by one guy, and has been constantly patched and fixed in response to complaints.

Having worked in software development, I can tell you that the Help is the last thing to get updated or changed - in virutally all projects. I think this is probably the same with FB. Patches and fixes are coming so fast, they can't keep up with updating the Help to keep in sync.

I loath FB - the only reason I have an account, is because my daughter insisted I get an account so I can view photos of her and my grandson, since that is her preferred method of sharing photos. (she is in Florida, I am in Canada). My account is as minimal as can be, with absolutely no personal information available.. including my name (I use a pseudonym). But, I must say, it is still hard for me to weed out all crap on her account, just so I can see her photos.

[Lisboeta]

"I loath FB - the only reason I have an account, is because my daughter insisted I get an account so I can view photos of her and my grandson..."

FB's utility has been vastly oversold! And I can't help thinking that there's something vaguely offensive about obliging a parent to go to a quasi-public site to view photos of his/her daughter and grandson. (Who the hell else is actually interested? Maybe her siblings, if she has any, and her in-laws, but that's about all.) Both the parent and daughter obviously have email; that would be a far more thoughtful, sensitive, way to communicate and share personal family photos.

[jscher2000]

Both the parent and daughter obviously have email; that would be a far more thoughtful, sensitive, way to communicate and share personal family photos.

Hopefully people won't start sending me dozens of photo attachments. I think online albums (Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, or another platform), set to be as private as you want, are much more convenient for everyone.

[eikelein]

.... are much more convenient for everyone.

This part of the sentence says it all, IMHO at least. It is so darned "convenient".

I told our kids that I'd prefer an email update with attached picture(s) but you know what? They are too lazy, email is too inconvenient.

Tempora mutantur. Whether I like it or not, they do.