51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good introduction to social networking for newbies and beginners, July 16, 2008
This review is from: Facebook For Dummies (For Dummies (Computers)) (Paperback)
This dummies book provides a good grounding in the uses of Facebook. As with all technology books, it's *already* a tad dated, even though it's publish-date is this year (2008!). Applications and their popularity ebb and flow - some of the third party applications they've mentioned I have not once encountered (ie - Fluff Friends), and some daily requests I get deluged with are not mentioned at all. I can't turn around, for example, without someone sending me a Lil' Green Patch, guilting me into sending out more green patches. It's like a charity virus. :-)
What the book is really for, though, is a novice through beginner's journey into the social network that is Facebook. The guide begins with how Facebook started, what the term "face book" means (hint - it's a college thing) and things you can and cannot do on this site.
What can't you do? Troll. Lie about who you are. Be under 13. Upload illegal content or porn - sorry!
What you can do - post a profile. Add photos, find friends, join groups, make pages for your business, plan events, mess with all kinds of fun applications, join up to five networks, make a newsfeed, sell things and buy advertising.
It's useful that some mention is made of how many friends to acquire. DO you be-friend everyone who asks? The book suggests quality over quantity - always useful advice in making friends in the meat world as well. :) What exactly Facebooking is, in practice, is laid out: how to find friends, how to "poke" them, and how to manage your ever-growing FB friend lists.
The Adding Photos chapter is pretty comprehensive and moves on into adding videos, writing Wall posts and giving "gifts."
One thing I found interesting and useful was the section on setting up FB with cell phones, something I had not tried prior to the reading. Of course, young people who've grown up with texting won't find anything new here. :)
The book has a great section for business people who have not been weaned on social networking - there is a chart advising when to make profiles, pages or groups, what you can do with events, how to set up ads and find/nurture "fans" of your business. This information should be extremely useful for anyone with a small or home business wanting to explore the amazing potential of free marketing/networking with Facebook, which is, honestly, a pretty intuitive site to dive into.
One thing I would have appreciated would have been some more insights from the authors on how FaceBook has impacted their lives and the lives of people in general. FB is a huge world and I am still learning the etiquette - how long is too long to be polite when answering wall posts and messages - sometimes I don't get to it for weeks/months. Do I always need to return gifts/fairy dust/karma? How do I get people to stop deluging me with said gifts/fairy dust/karma? What about people in the real world who want to know about my life and *aren't"* on Facebook - how do I let them know I don't have time for updating them and that REALLY if they care, they need to follow me there?
These are the kind of things I would really like to know and would improve the book considerably. In a sense, FaceBook for Dummies is mostly a regurgitation of the how-to instructions you can glean yourself from the FB website. A nicely laid-out regurgitation. :)
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29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very Basic Information, Good if You've Never Used Facebook But Plan to, However if You're Already Familiar with FB, Not Much Use, August 26, 2008
This review is from: Facebook For Dummies (For Dummies (Computers)) (Paperback)
I joined Facebook a few months ago, didn't know anything at all about it, just that other people wanted me on there too. If I had picked up this book at that exact stage of my Facebook experience it would have been very, very helpful, especially in knowing just what all the terminology and features were going on about. Having used Facebook for a few months now (and believe me there's lots of elements to Facebook I don't know) being that through trial and error I have become familiar with the basic tools on the site, (write on wall, post an image, start/edit a photo album, send someone a message etc) I found there wasn't really anything this very basic book could teach me. Well except I did find out what poke means, I had always wondered. The book really doesn't go into too much depth at all other than the basics. A lot of those basics if you're familiar with e-mail or basic photo software, wordprocessing you'll have no trouble working out yourself either.
This book would be ideal for the don't use a computer much in your life type people who have heard about Facebook, know their grandkids or whoever are on there and want to become a part of the very easy communication method. Facebook is a great site, by far an easier way of communicating than e-mail, chat rooms or anything else plus it's lots of fun! So if you're a bit daunted by it, then by all means this sort of book will be a great aid. If you're already familiar with the basics of Facebook, then there's really not much this book can offer you.
By the way Facebook has recently changed its layout and member profile appearances (it calls these changes the new Facebook) something which has dated this book still using the old (or classic layout) a fair bit even though it is still 2008 at the time of this review, the same year as publication.
There's actually a better book than this for those not too computer savy called
Facebook: The Missing Manual. If they are both around the same price, I'd get that instead.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Facebook for Dummies in out of date, May 28, 2009
This review is from: Facebook For Dummies (For Dummies (Computers)) (Paperback)
This book, while somewhat useful, is out of date and doesn't match what is on the facebook screens or how some activities behave. I cannot recommend it for a new user.
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