Customer Reviews

Facebook: The Missing Manual

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

If you are one of those people who absolutely must have a manual for everything you take on, then Facebook: The Missing Manual will complete your collection. This is one of those books that documents the extremely obvious. Don't know how to set up an account? Most people find that the words "Sign up, It's free" together with a grid marked "First Name," "Last Name," and "Email," is pretty self-explanatory. But if you are one of the very few people who wants a book with a small screen shot of the page--well this book is for you.

The main thing most people need to know about Facebook: The Missing Manual is that it won't give you more than the basics. Its not a very expensive book, but considering that this information is pretty self-explanatory to those who check out the site, most people will find its a needless expense. There are a few pages for recruiters and a few more for job seekers, but both provide only the most obvious information.

Its a shame because there is a place for a Facebook guide that provides more sophisticated strategies for marketers, recruiters and networkers. Unfortunately this is not it.

Facebook: The Missing Manual is an interesting idea. For those who came of age in the internet age, most aspects of Facebook are very obvious - it is, after all, designed to be a user-friendly social networking site. Like many computer programs, though, the basics may be simple, but the deeper features can be complicated, or, at the very least, not intuitive to all people.

This Facebook manual is clearly written and well-organized, with plenty of images to guide the reader through the many options available to you through facebook. The most important, by far, is chapter 13, which reviews privacy settings. If you have any doubts about how to protect your privacy, this should be one of the first things you review.

Facebook: The Missing Manual has one fault, though, and it is due to the nature of the internet itself. In the blink of an eye, this book can be out of date. Facebook is notorious for changing their privacy policies without warning, and they can reorganize the site and its applications at any time. So, there's a certain immediacy to obtaining this book. I would not recommend this if you want to have it available for the future, but I do think it could be useful if you want to explore facebook as it is now.

I browsed through every chapter and didn't discover anything I didn't already know. Everything in the book is covered in the "help" section of facebook itself. If there is anything special in this book, I haven't found it yet.

I prefer paper manuals over electronic, so I thought I would take a look at this book. I am an occasional user of facebook for about the last year and I really have only used it for personal contacts only. I was very interested in the section on "Doing Business on Facebook" as people are starting to view facebook as a viable communication tool in the workplace and found this section generally helpful.

I was however disappointed with the print quality and layout of the book. As soon as a used the book a couple times the cover unglued along the spine. In addition the book is printed in only black ink and cheep paper. It could be improved with color illustrations and narrative. The layout needs improvement as well and is rather repetitive.

I did however find much of the content quite helpful for looking up general information about facebook.

The title says it all. It is the missing manual for Facebook. It was easy read and provide the necessary information to get you up and running. People using Facebook for a number of different reasons social networking, business marketing, promoting causes, etc. Reading the book first allowed me to tailor the facebook to meet my objectives rather than blundering around and having to redo a lot of work.

Facebook The Missing Manual is well written and easy to read. It breaks down each component of Facebook into small steps, complete with highlighted text (so you'll understand which topic is being discussed) and illustrations. You can learn to create your Facebook page, add applications, offer all, part, or none of your pages to the general public, place an ad, answer an ad - you get the idea. The question, however, remains:

Why has this manual been missing?

After all, Facebook's been around for a while now. It's not making an unheralded appearance that needs a bit a promotion to succeed.

Unfortunately, I think the answer may that the manual's been missing because it really wasn't needed. There's plenty of help around the web (and around the office) for the novice Facebook user. And, I suspect, anyone who needs this level of detail to get going may not be the person who enjoys or who makes the best possible use of the potential of Facebook.

So, my rating for Facebook: the missing manual?

Quality of Writing and Style: 4

Comprehensive Approach: 5

Utility: 1

Overall rating: 3.33

I consider myself a serious Facebook user and spend more time on that website every day than I care to admit. Let's just say that I am the person that friends contact when they need an advice on how to set up some obscure Facebook Wall or privacy configuration. However, even I feel that I have only scratched the surface of all the possibilities that everyone's favorite social network has to offer. This point has been reinforced for me when I picked up E. A. Vander Veer's "Facebook - the missing manual." I was expecting to find just a lot of very detailed descriptions of what you can do with your photo album, how to set up a Facebook group, or similar everyday activity. What I found was a plethora of material on things that I had a very vague idea that they existed - such as using Facebook to find a job, advertise something, or collaborate on a project.

To be sure, much of the book (and especially the introductory chapters) is used for topics that even the casual Facebook users will need very little help with. However, even here there are some useful tips that can be useful for people with all levels of experience.

The book is written in a clear and accessible style with a general reader in mind. There is virtually no arcane technical jargon in it, and it should appeal to the widest possible audience. When explaining how to accomplish any action on the Facebook site the book presents numerous screen-shots of the actual Facebook interface. However, these screen-shots are used judiciously and most of the material is devoted to textual explanations. Unlike many other technical manuals, the page layout in this manual is very clean and uncluttered.

Facebook itself keeps changing and evolving, and hence books that deal with it will be in a constant need of update. This is the second edition of this manual, and as of this writing all of the tips and information seem to be accurate and up to date. Since I don't see any ebbing of the rise of Facebook, I expect to see many more editions of this book in the upcoming years.

One topic that I thought was missing was the integration of Facebook with outside websites. If you've been accession almost any news site these days, you would have probably noticed little Facebook "like" buttons accompanying news stories. These buttons help you share outside content on your Facebook wall. However, I suspect that due to its somewhat more technically demanding implementation this topic might best be left for its own book.

Overall, this is a great book that is fun to read and will help you get the most out of your Facebook experience.

The manual might be good for other thing about facebook but it was usless for what I wanted it for and that was how do you copy a photo off of Facebook and put it on a flashdrive.Also there is no file in facebook to SAVE PHOTO.

FACEBOOK - THE MISSING MANUAL, review by Brian Harris
As a Facebook rookie, "Facebook - The Missing Manual" was an excellent resource for me. Although using Facebook is generally intuitive, in setting up my Facebook account, I found myself asking questions about privacy concerns which this book clearly addressed. In addition, as an author who is going to be using Facebook as a source of networking, I really appreciated the fact the book covered information on setting up "pages" and "groups" as well as some general thoughts on business applications. In addition, the chapter related to advertising on Facebook was useful to me.
Once I actually set up my Facebook account and started using it, I still found there were times that I referred to content in this book to help me. In the end, the book was often a great time-saver to me. As one reviewer on this book commented, things on the internet are moving so quickly that "in a blink of an eye", this book could be out-of-date. While I agree with this point of view, "Facebook - The Missing Manual" gave me useful information that was mostly current. When any aspects of Facebook had changed since the book was published, I still found that the content of the book helped me to search for the revised information on the internet, and placing the new information into the context of Emily Vander Veer's writing, I was better able to understand it.
Now that I have been using Facebook for a little over a week, I feel that this book is an excellent source of information for Facebook newcomers. It is easy to understand, and it is also easy to access specific content even if you don't want to read the complete book. For those people who are experienced Facebook users, or who enjoy searching on the web for "how to do things", this book may not be beneficial to you. For anyone who is thinking about starting to use Facebook, or who would like a general overview of how to do business of Facebook, then this book should serve as an excellent resource.

This book is just what the publisher promises: a manual. It's like getting a manual to use for DVD player: how to turn the knobs and which gizmo does what. The screen shots are clear.

I'd say the book is targeted to the beginner. In fact, someone who's been on the Internet awhile may find the book unnecessary. The Facebook site isn't all that hard to use. If you want to know how to do something, you can just google it. For instance: "how to change your photo in Facebook." Just google and there it is!

However, to use Facebook effectively for business apps, you need more. You need to understand not just what to do but why. You need a few things that i couldn't find covered here, such as a way to create a URL with your name. You might also need a way to get people to become fans of your blog.

The book does cover the basics of etiquette and safety, in bits and pieces. If you're using FB for business or career purposes, though, you'll need a more sophisticated understanding. In a live bookstore you could just skim to see what level is being offered. When buying online, however, an experieinced FB user might be disappointed.