What's the difference between Facebook Profiles, Pages and Groups?

Many, many people are confused between a difference between the meaning of a Profile on Facebook, a Group on Facebook and a Page on Facebook. You should read this article even if you think you know the difference, as many a times, people wrongly think that too. I've even seen errors even in a couple of PCWorld articles, which is surprising. I'd like to clear out the confusion right away.

If you say "I have a Facebook page", you are wrong! Read on to know more.

What's a Facebook Page? 

A Facebook 'Page' is supposed to be capitalized. It is the page for a business, band, celebrity, website or something like that. You can Like a Page (which was initially Become a Fan). When you Like it, you start getting updates from that company, website or whatever, depending on what the Page administrator(s) write about. You can start a page for your website, company or something like that by clicking here. This Page will be linked to your Facebook account, and you DO NOT log in as that company. You will be the admin for that Page, and you can add more admins, remove yourself, among other things at any time.


Here is an example of a Facebook Page.

What is a Facebook Profile? 

A Facebook 'Profile' need not be capitalized. You can, but it isn't always done. It is the 'page' for you. Every person has a profile. It is what your friends can see when they click your name. It is NOT what you see when you log into Facebook first. That's the News Feed where you can see the latest updates from your friends and family, and even the Pages you Like. On your profile, people see your big sized profile photo, all the things you have recently done, a list of your friends, your photos and your personal information, depending on what you have protected from others (and who is seeing your profile) and other such stuff.


Remember it this way: Pages are for companies and Profiles are for people.
Now let's have a look at what Groups are.


What are Facebook Groups?
Facebook 'Groups' (also capitalized) are very much different from Pages or Profiles. They are what they sound like. They are 'groups' that you can create with other people in it. You can have a Group of people in a class, in a division of a business, your family or just for fun. Groups are something you can just go about creating and getting people to join in. Groups have a Wall, where depending on the privileges given by the admin(s), members may post videos, photos, links, little 'Docs', events etc. Security for Groups is of three levels:

• Open: Members and content is public
• Closed: Members are public, content is private
• Secret: Members and content are private

Depending on the security, the Group may be open for anyone to search and join, or just hidden away. Groups can even have their own email address of the format '<some_name>@groups.facebook.com' and members of a group (over 200) can chat all at the same time. A Group might be useful for your study groups if you are a student!




I hope this clears out any confusion you may be having regarding these three kinds of things on Facebook. And remember, do not mess up. Your geek friends will laugh at you when you are not looking. Or worse, they may correct your mistake in front of everyone.


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What's the difference between Facebook Profiles, Pages and Groups?

Getting around the new Facebook profile page

Facebook has (yet again) revamped the profile page layout, beginning Sunday. The feature is slowly rolling out. You'll probably get it in a couple of days if not immediately. Josh Wiseman, of Facebook writes about it on the Facebook blog. If you go to the page, there's a link for you to upgrade right away. This should most probably work for everyone.

As I write this article, I haven't looked around the new features too much, and I'll be discovering it with you. Let's begin with the 45-second demo video those guys at Facebook put together.


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I seem to like it. I always like new features and designs. But as usual, there will be people who'll refute and say that this is the worst thing ever. But when the next change comes, they'll start liking the previous one. Anyways, let's get started. I have broken this post down into sections.

First looks
When you upgrade to the new look, you'll see a huge improvement in organization. I mean huge. On top of the profile, just below your name are your personal details. It shows your employment status, your school, your hometown, where you live, favorite sports (we'll talk about this later), the languages you speak (we'll talk about it later too), your birthday (if enabled) and stuff like that.

Just below that are some recent photos you are tagged in. You can optionally remove individual photos from the place of prominence right away. If you look at the new profile, you'll notice that photos are given more importance now. I think you should start cleaning up those tags in the stupid, cartoony photos right away.

There are no more Tabs on top. The links to a person's Wall, Info and other stuff are to the left. Do you remember Facebook talking about the tabs going away very soon very recently? Notifications used to pop-up saying that your Applications will no longer be able to use Tabs. First they took away Boxes, and now even Tabs. This is very sad. I hope they add 'Pages' for Applications sometime soon, and link to them from this left sidebar.

Personal info
There are slight changes in the interests and personal info. There is a new section for your favorite Sports, where you can list the sports you play, your favorite teams and athletes. Your favorite music, movies and books all come under a section Arts and Entertainment. They've categorized the favorite quotes, religious and political views and something new called People Who Inspire You under Philosophy.

Also, if you go look under Basic Information, you'll see a new piece of info you can share: Languages You Speak. Just start typing your languages and Facebook suggests them for you. All this will appear on your profile, as we talked about earlier. 

In the information about your school and college, you can list the classes you took, add a description if you like and you can even list your classmates for the year.

Miscellaneous changes
If you upgrade, you'll notice a few changes in the overall interface on the site. Now, you no longer attach a photo, video or link to your status update. Your News Feed and your Wall will have a strip asking you to post something. Your options are the usual photo, video and link. The button still says Attach, which should be fixed soon. I clicked Link to try it out. When you paste in a link, it says 'Something about this link...' and you can write in something. It should appear as the link-with-your-'comment'-followed-by-your-friends'-comments thing Facebook made a few weeks ago.

 

Another new thing is the Badge feature. Just go to your Profile and scroll to the end of your list of friends and family on the left, and you'll see a link to Add a Badge to Your Site. You can choose from various kinds of Badges you can add to your website. You can thus show off the photos you want, tell your visitors that you like some Page or just link to your profile. Just copy-paste the code FB gives you.

So that's it for the new Facebook features, which I certainly like. Do you have something to say? Do you love it? Or do you hate it, as usual? Throw it all into the comments. Oh, and you can log in using your Facebook account to comment (or just post as guest!).

For more Facebook fun, click Facebook in the tag cloud in the sidebar, and do look at my blog archive. Don't forget to Like Right Now In Tech on Facebook. If you want, you can also subscribe via RSS or Twitter. Have fun with the new features. Stay tuned. 
 

Getting around the new Facebook profile page

Why Google Docs is fantastic

I just gave Google Docs a try. This was almost an year ago. I didn't like it. It had lots of bugs. The formatting didn't work perfectly always, and the feature set was completely bare. I wasn't a hardcore Google user at the time, so I didn't stick around for long, and switched back to Office. 

I don't have Office 2007 or 2010, just 2003, which I don't like at all. I started using OpenOffice, which has now become a lot better than MS Office 2003. But I thought, randomly one day, of giving Google Docs a try. I did, and I fell in love with it. Here are some things that I really liked about it.

Browser based

Being able to run from just a browser is a strong feature. I don't need to download anything at all, unlike other (even free) office suites. I just need an Internet connection and a web browser. It's a complete web-app. Period. This makes it run from any computer in the world. Almost. So no matter where I am and whose computer I use, I always have complete access to Docs, unlike MS Office, OpenOffice or Symphony or whatever.

Google product
This advantage may not apply to everyone. But I love Google and all the products. I use Gmail, Google Calendar, Blogger and whatnot. So having a complete office suite, that runs on any computer, all connected to my Google Account is an neat idea. No matter what Microsoft does, I am not looking back. Google offers everything for free.

Feature rich
Just months, ago, Google Docs wasn't very useable. I have experienced it myself. But now, it has so many awesome features. There has been an addition of web fonts recently, which lets you use newer fonts like Calibri, Cambria, Droid and more. There is a full blown equation editor, heading formats, and everything.

Still, the interface is very clean and slick, unlike the crowded and unorganized one on OpenOffice. [I don't say unorganized for MS Office, because in the newer editions, the new ribbon interface is really good.] Docs lets you do practically everything that you could do on another office suite, including export in various formats, which brings me to the next point.

Compatible
Docs is perfectly compatible with almost all popular formats. It exports your documents, spreadsheets, presentations and all in MS Office formats, Open Document format, and even PDF, which is really good. You don't need to fix up the teeny tiny errors or formatting issues that come up when you view your document in another program before printing. Just download it in PDF format, and it will work practically anywhere you go.

In the cloud
Around the time I am writing this, I am also writing another series on this blog, about moving to the cloud. If you have read the previous posts in it, you probably know that I am slowly migrating to the cloud. And it's a great thing that Docs is a web-app. All my documents are safely stored online, and I can access and edit them, or even download them from anywhere in the world. There's also a web clipboard, so that I can even paste the last cut or copied text from any computer, anywhere, thus continuing where I left off.

Mobile support 

This one does not fully apply to me. But Google Docs has pretty good support for mobile devices too. I can see most of my documents on the go. If I had an iPhone, iPad (which has a special site for Docs), iPod touch, or an Android phone or tablet, I could even edit the files on Docs, straight from the browser. Moreover, iOS and Android users can even view PDFs and other file types that are not supported on Symbian and other OSes, right from Google Docs.

Free

This is one of the biggest ones. Docs, just like most other Google services is completely free. There is a 1 GB limit to your files stored online, which is negligible, as only the documents in formats other than Google Docs formats count. When you upload, you can convert your document or whatever to the Docs format, and when downloading it, you can simply export it as a PDF or whatever office format you require. If you require extra space anyway, which is rare, just pay the small amount. Rest is free.
Regularly updated
Microsoft does keep releasing regular security updates and other stuff, but Google Docs actually updates very regularly, being a web-app. There is no download required, so it is very easy for Google to deploy updates. There is always something new in every few weeks. I mean, actually, visibly new. Be it a new look, better interface, or just a new feature, such as new fonts. Microsoft doesn't provide such updates so frequently, if at all.







Though there are so many good things in Docs, it does have some problems. It could use some more features. It isn't yet comparable to MS Office, but can be a good substitute for those who like it. For myself, I'll be really happy to switch to Microsoft Office 2010, as it really helps in making better presentations and documents, and is slightly more user-friendly, but until then, I won't switch back from Docs anytime soon.

Why Google Docs is fantastic

Going to the Cloud: Browser sync

A couple of days ago, I wrote a post announcing the start of a new series about Going to the Cloud. Here it is then. The first thing I'm talking about is online browser sync, which probably almost everyone is already using.

If you have read the previous article, you must know that the world is slowly going online, as the Internet is becoming more and more ubiquitous. Web browsers are the most important thing in the world then. So much that there are operating systems being made that are completely based on a web browser.

What is online browser sync?
If you really don't know, this is a system where your web browser syncs all your settings, passwords, bookmarks etc. to the cloud and you can sync it back to the same, or in some cases, even different browsers on another computer. You're probably using it already. If not, and you find yourself using multiple computers, you should. It is really very useful.

How do I sync my browser?
There are many browsers out there that have their own synchronization services. Google Chrome has it's own sync feature. You just use your Google Account. Mozilla Firefox is getting an inbuilt sync feature in the next version too. If you're not using the beta, there is an add-on available. Opera has it too.

If you are not using Firefox, Opera or Chrome, or if you use different browsers, you still have options available. There's a service called XMarks. Depending on your browser, it can sync almost anything. From bookmarks to history to even open tabs.

Conclusion:
That was just the beginning. Browser syncing is an easy way to start getting onto the cloud. Most people are already doing it. So stay tuned until next time, when I write about other easy ways to start using the cloud for your digital life.

Update: Here's the next article in the series.


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Going to the Cloud: Browser sync

Using Google Timeline results

If you haven't discovered it yet, Google Timeline search is a really useful tool if you're studying history, or if you want to know the facts about a particular time period or era. I discovered it very recently when I was researching something for school.

When you type for something that could have a timeline, such as World War 2, the option shows up automatically, as shown in the image below. But you can always click More search tools and choose it. But it won't be as accurate and perfect as it would be with a popular historical events.

When you go there, you'll see a timeline of the major events arranged chronologically. You'll notice that they come from various different sources that Google has indexed. This includes newspapers, books, news articles online, and even websites and other publications. There is a graph at the top that also displays the points in time when events happened more frequently.

For example, for some reason, Google displayed (at least for me) a span of 1910 to 2010 for World War 2, as there is simply so much info on so many different websites that Google gets confused. But the time around 1940 to 1945 was more bustling. You can click a section on the graph to display even more detailed events for that part.

You can zoom into decades, and then single years, and then even into particular months in that year. But you always won't see very accurate results in Timeline, as it is not a human curated feature. It is displayed automatically by scouring the the web for information. You can't fully trust it. So it is a good idea to click on the results and verify that it is actually what it looks like, and to use Timeline only as a part of your research.

So that was a little explanation on how to use Google Timeline to help in research.

You may like my other articles, such as these:
And now bacteria will store your photos, videos, music...
iPad 2 has USB?
New series: Going to the cloud!
6 reasons to use Evernote
Beginners' Guide to cleaning up your Facebook account

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Using Google Timeline results