14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook is introducing a number of changes, most related to privacy and privacy controls. In short, the social network is making it easier for users to change privacy settings for many common features and areas, without having to visit the confusing settings page.
The main drive behind the changes was to make it clearer for users just who gets to see a photo, a post, or some information on their profiles. The new features will be made available to users gradually, only a few see them already.
Facebook is finally adding more granular control over who gets to see any of your status updates.
"The control for who can see each post will be right inline. For each audience, there is now an icon and label to help make it easier to understand and decide who you're sharing with," Facebook's Chris Cox explained.
"Also, when you tag someone, the audience label will automatically update to show that the person tagged and their friends can see the post," he added.
This change sounds exactly like Google+ where you have to choose the people you share with for any post you make.
One thing that's missing though is Circles, but Facebook says that, going forward, the groups of people you can share with will be expanded and be more customizable to include "co-workers, Friend Lists you've created, and Groups you're a member of."
Facebook makes it sound like the share options will grow dynamically, based on your past preferences, which sounds very interesting, like an automated 'circles' feature.
Another big change are the in-line profile editing tools which will allow users to hide or show any section and info on their profiles straight from that page.
"Content on your profile, from your hometown to your latest photo album, will appear next to an icon and a drop-down menu. This inline menu lets you know who can see this part of your profile, and you can change it with one click," Facebook explained.
The new in-line settings are great, but Facebook goes one step further, it's also adding a "View Profile As" button to the profile page, enabling users to see what their profiles look like to other people.
Facebook already had this feature, but it was buried and most people didn't know about it.
Another subtle but important change is that you can now modify the privacy settings on a status update, even after you posted it.
If you've used Google+, you probably know that this is exactly how users manage their profile pages as well, including the "View profile as" feature.
Facebook though says that it's been working on these changes for many months and they're in no way related to Google+. It's very likely that Facebook has been working on at least some of the features before Google+ became publicly available.
But, not to get all "conspiracy theory" over this, it's hard to imagine that Facebook had no idea that Google+ was in the works and that it had no inside knowledge of what it would look like and how it worked, well before the site went public.
Whether Facebook copied from Google+ is a moot point, Google+ borrowed half of its features from Facebook. In the end, what matters is that both these products are better from it and healthy competition will spur both companies to outdo themselves, which can only be good for the users.
