Facebook For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) (Paperback)

~ Carolyn Abram (Author), (Author)
Key Phrases: news feed, posted items, application directory, Facebook Page, Facebook Platform, Getting Familiar (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Facebook is certainly one of the hottest sites on the Web. Not only does it help people get connected and stay connected with family and friends, it is increasingly being used by businesses to connect with their customers. If you’ve thought about getting into the Facebook community, Facebook For Dummies is a great tool to help you maximize the experience.

Written by a pair of Facebook insiders, this handy guide shows you how to create a profile, communicate with friends, play with Facebook applications, and explore the unique ways Facebook can improve your business. You’ll find out who’s on Facebook, how to protect your privacy, how others use the site, and how to tailor the system to meet your needs. Find out all about:

• Creating a Facebook profile that enhances your real-world relationships
• Sharing photos and messages with friends
• Joining networks for your city, school, or work  
• Managing the amount of information you share
• Understanding and using synchronous and asynchronous messaging, private and public communication, and active and passive interactions
• Taking advantage of free and paid ways to use Facebook for business

Whether you want to connect with friends already on Facebook or be the first on your block to join, Facebook For Dummies will smooth the way!

From the Back Cover

Find out how to maximize your Facebook experience

Create a Facebook profile that enhances your real-world relationships

Whether you want to connect with friends already on Facebook or be the first on your block to join, this is the book you need. Written by a pair of Facebook insiders, Facebook For Dummies shows how to create a profile, communicate with friends, play with Facebook applications, and explore the unique ways Facebook can improve your business.

Discover how to:

• Create a profile to your liking

• Share photos and messages with friends

• Join networks for your city, school, or work

• Manage the amount of information you share

• Use Facebook for business

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies (February 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470262737
• ISBN-13: 978-0470262733
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #55,881 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 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

By	Jill Florio "blog.runpee.com" (Southern CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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. :)

22 of 24 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

By	James N Simpson (Gold Coast, QLD Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Facebook welcomes everyone", October 1, 2008

By	Linda Bulger (Avon, Maine) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I have a Facebook account but use it very little. I post the occasional picture, communicate with a friend or two, and seldom do much more. There's a Boggle-like application called Pathwords that I was enjoying a lot, challenging and being challenged; I had a happy day when I beat my Australian son's high score, but then someone beat mine and ... well, you know. I've spent lots of time in the past on other websites: Yahoo 360, Multiply and Shelfari; I like to figure out how to navigate them on my own and have never had a problem making a nice profile page and interacting with friends. These days I spend more time on Amazon than on any other website.

When I saw Facebook For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) at the library, I thought maybe this book would inspire me to become more interested in Facebook, so I brought it home. As you would expect of a "for Dummies" product, it's very helpfully arranged and contains a wealth of information, tips and good ideas. Tonight I was reading about networking with old high school classmates and thinking, why? when, ironically, I had a phone call from an old high school classmate -- only the third time in around four decades that I've spoken with him, and it was a great pleasure. Hmmm ... so I went back to the book with a new desire to, well, network.

The book is arranged in five sections; the first chapter of each section is an overview. It must be accurate and thorough: the authors, Carolyn Abram and Leah Pearlman are Facebook Product Managers.

PART 1 is GETTING FAMILIAR WITH FACEBOOK, setting out the ground rules of the place. Facebook was first developed for college students but has much wider application now. Security and privacy concerns are to the forefront. You must be at least 13 years old to create a profile.
PART 2 is ADDING YOUR OWN FACE TO FACEBOOK; this section covers the joining process, posting photos, finding friends, and a general overview of applications.
PART 3, KEEPING CONNECTED AND STAYING IN TOUCH, describes networks, groups, events, and the mobile Facebook application. Make it essential to your life, then take it with you!
PART 4, IT'S NOT PERSONAL: IT'S BUSINESS describes applications and platforms for getting your business or your message out there. Businesses can create pages and demographically targeted "social ads" to further their goals.
PART 5 is called THE PART OF TENS and consists of ten examples of third-party applications, "case studies" on Facebook networking, and interesting groups.

Oh my! there's a lot here. It's too much information for my do-it-yourself taste, really, but then you don't have to use everything in the book if it doesn't suit your needs. Now that I've read the book I could certainly dive into Facebook with confidence and vigor, if I only had the time. Maybe when I retire ....

Linda Bulger, 2008