New Trending Feature on Facebook

We all are familiar with the "Trending" section that shows up on the home page of Facebook. This shows all the currently trending news from around the world. As there is a lot of news trending all over, it is not easy to provide users with news that might be important or interesting to the user. The algorithms and machine learning do help Facebook learn what the users interests are, but it can't tell if the user will be interested in something new. Although the algorithms might predict some related stories of interest, it is not certain. I have seen Facebook trying different things to show more of the "Trending" post in the section. In recent past, there was a nice list of topics such as politics, sports, etc., and upon clicking, the section would expand to show related trending news. I thought it was good but it disappeared as many of experimental features do.

A few minutes ago, I saw the same thing appear on my home page. Its back and better than before! They have a nice tab view for different topics and you can easily browse with little movement. Fast, easy and fancy. As always, they have beautiful icons which are familiar to everyone.

Above is the "Trending" section that appeared as a default on my screen. It has news from everywhere and apparently, it is tailored to my interests. Well, most of it I would say. This is what we all saw so far. The tab can be seen on top with different topics of interest.

Below are the screenshots of other sections.

   

Facebook keeps on experimenting, getting feedback and then releasing a feature to everyone. It says almost every Facebook user has been part of the experiment at some point of time and I think that is fair. I don't know how long this new update is going to stay but I hope it remains cause I like how it makes reading more news convenient. You can browse easily and know more of whats happening around the world.

What happens when facebook blocks you from adding friends?

There are a couple of things you won't be able to do when you are blocked from adding people. You need to know what exactly you will be missing, what you should do when you are blocked and what happens if you continue the same thing after your block time is over.

What you can't do when you are blocked?

• You cannot add people. There are some cases where people add someone who they know very well. Still they get blocked. This is because of the time constrain. Too many requests in a short period.
• You can't message people who are not your friends. This means you can't even ask others to add you. And if someone deletes you from their friend list during this block period, you won't be able to message them either.

What if you continue adding people the same way after your ban is over?

That is something you should really avoid doing. Once you are blocked, your chances of getting blocked for one more time increase. If you continue adding people like you did before, you might get blocked again and quicker than before. Each time the duration of block doubles.

• First block is for two days.
• You don't change your habbit after that... you get blocked for four days.
• You are annoyed and begin adding people again after the block is over... you might get blocked for a week.
• Later, for 14 days.
• Finally, there is a block for 30 days!!

After the 30 days block, you will have to stop doing that random and frequent adding cause there is a possiblilty that your account will be suspended by facebook.
Well, this suspension might not last forever. But you never know how long it will last so it is better not to let things go out of your control and keep all your features working.

 

Why facebook blocked me from adding friends?

There are lots of users complaining about not being able to add new friends as facebook has blocked them from adding people. There are several reasons for this block and few things you need to do to avoid getting blocked. All the content here is what I have learned from my experience of using facebook and getting blocked a number of times. I think it will be helpful to you.

Why facebook blocks people?

The main reason is that you are considered as a spammer if you send too many requests in a short period of time. Even if you are not one of those spammers, your actions may make you look like one. Facebook has to keep a check on the spam friend requests as there are hundreds of fake account created everyday and using these fake accounts, friend requests are sent to random users. Therefore, you may be identified as a spammer even if you are not.

There is a possibility that you had sent some friend requests in the past that were either declined or just left unanswered. If that is the case, you will look like a person who sends requests to unknowns leading to the block.

People you added must have reported you as an unknown outside facebook.
A new way of checking if a person is a genuine user or a spammer is used by facebook these days. When a person, you have sent a friend request to, confirms or ignores your request, there is a question asked to him/her which is "Do you know this user outside facebook?". If there are people who answer "no" to this question, you know you will be seen as a spammer.

Also if your requests are declined by lots of people, you will be making it to the blocked users list easily.

You might get blocked if you send requests to completely unknown people. What I mean is if you sent friend request to people with who you don't have anything in common. There are less chances of getting blocked if you send friend request to someone having common friends, living in the same city, went to same school, etc.

How can you avoid getting blocked?

• Add only the people you really know in real life.
• Wait if your previous requests are not accepted. Send new requests only if you are sure that the previous requests are accepted.
• Send a message to the person with the friend request telling him/her how you know him/her. This will be helpful if you are adding a person you know but that person does not know you.
• Make sure the person who accepted your request answers the question- "Do you know this user outside facebook?" as "yes". This will help facebook know that you are adding people you already know.
• If you are warned by facebook and asked if you really know the user, try not to send friend requests for a couple of days.
• A good way of adding a friend, if you got a warning, will be to message the friend and ask them to add you.
• Even if you message a lot of non-friends, that may be considered as spam. So avoid it.
• If you notice that your friend request is unanswered for a long time, even when the person is active on facebook, it is better to cancel the request yourself.
• If you get warned or blocked, be careful on selecting who you want to send request. Add only the people who will accept it and be patient.

What exactly happens if you are blocked?

I hope this helps you getting blocked again and make connections on facebook with your real friends.
Any question related to the post? Comment below and I will try to answer if possible for me.

Photos on Facebook

People using Facebook really love sharing photos on Facebook. It is really easy and fun sharing photos on Facebook. Fun, because your friends can like and comment on your photos. You can tag your friends in your photos and similarly your friends can tag you in their photos. And every photo you add or you are tagged in appears on your profile/timeline until you remove them.

One very advantageous thing of uploading pics is that even if you lose them by any chance, you can get them back from your profile.

You can share a single photo as you share a status or you can create a separate album and add pics to that. All the photos you share the way you share a status are automatically added to an album "Wall Photos" which is present on your profile.

How to add/upload photos?

If you wish to share a single pic, from your home page select "Add Photo/Video" and then select "Upload Photo/Video".
You can select any pic from your computer to upload and then post it.
To create an album, same thing, select "Add Photo/Video" then "Create Photo Album". After that you can select the pics you want to add to the new album you are about to create. To select multiple photos, just keep holding the "control" key and click on the pics. Finally upload.

There is one more way to add a photo. But only if you want to make it your profile pic. You can change the pic directly without adding it to any album. Just go to your profile/timeline, hover the mouse pointer over your profile pic and click on the tab that appears saying "Change picture" or "Edit profile photo". If you are using the old profile, it will take you to another page where you can add a new pic from your computer. For the timeline users you will get a drop-down menu from which you can select to add a new pic. Once you make a pic your profile pic, it is added to the album profile pics.

If you wish to post a photo to your friends wall, or on a page, just go to their profile/timeline and select "Add photo/video" and post.


How to create a new album?

You can do that from your home page. Just select "Add photo/video" and then "Create Photo Album".
One more way to do this is to go to your profile/timeline, then photos and you will see a "create album" tab on the top right of the page. Use that tab to create a new album.

How to tag friends in photos?

When you are uploading a single photo from your wall/home page, you can tag your friends using the icon at the extreme left bottom of the box which appears when you click on "Add photo/video". This pic will show you the icon.

As you can see there is a separate area saying "Who were you with?". This appears when you click on the icon. In this area, start typing the names of the friends you want to tag and then select the friend from the suggestions that appear.
You can also tag a friend after uploading the pic. Just open the pic, click on the tag photo tab and then on the photo click where you want to tag your friend. A square appears after you click on the pic and you are asked to type a name. Begin typing and select the name you want to.

There is one more icon besides the one used for tagging as you can see in the snap above. It is a balloon icon which you can use to add a location. On clicking the balloon, you will be asked to enter the location and as you did for tagging, start typing a name and then select from the suggestions.

If you have created a new album and uploaded numerous photos to it, you can tag your friends while the upload is still going on. When a photo is uploaded completely, it shows a thumbnail of that photo and you can tag you friends by clicking on the photo. When you click, a square appears with a text box under it where you have to enter a friends name.
If you are uploading too many photos, you can wait until the whole album is uploaded. After you have uploaded the album completely, you will see a page where Facebook groups some similar looking faces in different photos. You just have to tag your friend once and all the photos grouped will be tagged. It is not possible to precisely make out the same person in every pic so you might see the same friend again grouped separately.

You can tag any friend anytime by just viewing the pic and using the "Tag photo" tab.

How to remove a tag?

View the photo and click on the "Edit" tab and you will see the names of the people you have tagged in that pic. To remove a tag just click on the "x" that appears in front of the name of the friend you want to untag.

How to add photo to an existing album?

Go to your profile/timeline, then photos. Open the album you want to add new photos to and click on the "edit album" link present in the line just under the name of the album.
There will be a "Add photos" tab which allows you to add more pics to the same album.

NOTE: You can add 1000 photos to a single album. Not more than that.


How to delete an album?

For deleting the whole album, go to photos from your profile/timeline and open the particular album.
Click on the edit album link which is present just under the name of the album.
At the top right side you will find a few tabs. One of these tabs will have an icon of a garbage bin which is the delete tab. Use it to delete the album.


How to delete pics from an album?

Open the album you want to delete pics from. Click on the link "edit album"
That will show all the photos from the album.
Move the mouse pointer on the pic you want to delete and click on the downward arrow that appears. Then select remove this photo.

How to move photos to other album?

Same as the above thing. Go to the album, edit album, mouse over the pic you want to move. Click on the downward arrow and select move to other album.

How to change the album cover?

Again go to the album > edit album. Mouse over the pic which you want to be the cover of your album and click on the arrow that appears. Select make album cover.


Here is a snap which shows part of the page which appears when you go to an album and then click on edit album link:

Here, N is the name of the album. You can click on it to change it.
Just under the name there will be one more text field which is to add some description about the album.
Phoenix Mall is the place where the pics in this album were taken. When you click on that, you will see some suggestions, you can choose a place from those or you can start typing a name and then select from the suggestions.
Then there is the add photos tab to add more photos to the album.
Following it is the garbage bin icon which can be used to delete the complete album.
The next tab in this snap says friends which means this album is visible to friends only. You can click on it and change the visibility/privacy if you want.

To learn more about privacy for photos click here.

Privacy for photos on Facebook.

Sharing photos on Facebook is one of the most favourite things of almost every user.
Maybe that is why there are millions of photos are uploaded to Facebook every hour.
People like sharing their pictures with their friends and family through Facebook. Which is really simple and fun.
The catch is that there are some things you want to share with a group of people but don't want rest of the friends to see them. Or don't want your family members to see that.
This is very common with the pictures people share on Facebook. They don't want everyone to see each and every photo they share.
So here is something you might need to know which can help you to set the privacy for your photos as per your wish.

There are different types of albums on Facebook.

• Cover photos (only if you have the timeline)
• Profile pictures
• Wall photos
• Albums created by you
• Mobile uploads
• And other albums which are created by some apps

Besides these albums you have created on your profile, there will be other pics which appear on your profile which are not included in any album.
These are the pics you are tagged in by your friends.

Let me just tell you about these albums in brief.

Cover photos: These are public by default and everyone who can see your profile can see the photos in this album.
There is no way to change the setting of this album to anything other than public. Facebook does not provide any option for setting the privacy for these pics. So when you upload anything to this album, make sure you wont have any problem even if the whole world is able to see that.

Profile pictures: They are the pics that you had set as your profile pic in the past and includes the current profile pic. Photos automatically get added to this album if you set any photo on Facebook as your profile pic. You can also add a new picture to this album by changing your profile picture.

Wall photos: This album includes all the photos you had shared on your wall directly and not added to any album. It is like sharing a status. You can decide the audience for every post. This means you can have different privacy setting for each photo here.

Albums you have created: These are the albums you create and add photos to them. You can set privacy for the whole album unlike the wall photos album where you have a choice to have different setting for every photo. You can make changes to the settings or the album(add photos/delete photos/delete album) any time you want.

Mobile uploads: This album contains all the photos you upload to Facebook using your mobile phone. It is same as the wall photos just that it contains the photos you upload from your mobile. Again, as i said it is similar to the wall photos album, you can have different privacy for every pic.

Other are the albums that contain the pics created by the apps on Facebook. These pics might have your friends tagged automatically. The privacy of these albums depends on the privacy you select while using that app. If any of your friends are tagged in that pic, then the pic will appear on their profile.

How to change the privacy/visibility of an album?

To change the privacy of an album, go to your photos page.
For that go to your profile/timeline, then photos.
If you are using the old profile, you will have to select photos from the page that appears. Here you can see the "Photos" link which you need to select:

This will take you to a page showing all the albums on your profile.
Each of the albums will have a pic which is from the album itself and right under the albums there will the name of the album, number of photos and an "Audience selector".
As the name says it, audience selector help you to set who can see that album.

In this pic you can see the audience selectors for the albums.
The way the audience selector icon appears tell you the current visibility or privacy setting.
If you click on this audience selector, you will get a drop-down menu from which you can select a different setting for that album.
You will get different options like friends, friends of friends, only me, custom and then there are the names of the lists on your profile.
You can select any of the options as per your need.
Friends, friends of friends and only me options do exactly what the name suggests. The custom option helps you to do more than the previous options. You can make the album visible to certain people/lists only or hide it from certain people/lists.
The names of the lists are to help you to quickly set the privacy listwise. You can check the names of the list you want to make the album visible to.
(Know more about Lists on Facebook)

As told earlier, you can't change the privacy of the cover photos album. Whoever can see your profile can see your cover pics aswell.

For the albums wall photos and mobile uploads, you can have different privacy for every photo. Just go to that album and look for the audience selector under the pic. Use the audience selector to select the visibility.

Privacy settings for your Facebook status.

When you share something or post something on Facebook, you need to check what are the privacy settings for that post you have shared.
You certainly don't want everything you share to be seen by everyone in your friends list or seen by anyone on Facebook(even if they are not friends with you on Facebook).
Facebook provides you with very good privacy settings for what you share or post on your profile.

You can see there are three options that you can choose from depending on what you want to do.
Set your status, share a pic or video or ask a question.

The most common thing people do is write a status or add a photo. Asking a question is very rare amongst the users.
The photos you share from here go into the Wall Photos album on your profile and you can have different privacy setting for every photo.

How to set privacy for your status update?

Many people don't want their status/photo to be seen by people who aren't their friends on Facebook. Some want only a few friends to see the status. Also there are a few who don't care even if every person on Facebook reads their status. It all depends on what is being shared.

So how to make your status/photo visible to few friends and hide from others?
It's really simple!
Just some clicks and maybe some keys to be pressed and you can set the privacy as per your wish.

You can see "Friends" and a downward arrow in the snap above. That is what can help you set the privacy.

It need not necessarily be friends in your profile. It can be public, custom or anything else. That tells you the current privacy setting for the post.

By clicking on that tab, you will get a drop-down menu with several options.
From that you can choose the desired setting. It can be public, friends only, friends of friends, only me, custom or choose from the lists you have on your profile.

So here's what the options can do for you:

Public- This makes your status/pic visible to everyone using Facebook.

Friends- Only your Facebook friends will be able to see the post.

Friends except Acquaintances- The post will be visible to your friends except to the people who you add to the "Acquaintances" list.

Only me- No one except you can see the post.

Custom- It is the best if you know how to use it. It is to customise the settings if the above options are not enough to do what you want to.

When you select custom, you will see a box like this:

There are two main sections. One to add who you want to see your post, that is the "Make this visible to" and the second one is to hide the post from certain people as the name says.

As you can see in the snap, there are few options to make the post visible to.

Friends and Friends of Friends are simple to understand and use.

The third option allows you to select specific people or list so that your post will be visible to those people only.

When you select the "Specific People or List" option you are asked to enter the names of friends or lists and suggestions appear from which you need to select the required friend/list.

The "Hide this from" section allows you to hide the post from specific people or lists.

Just start typing the name and then choose from the suggestions.

Same things are applied to sharing a photo on your wall.

There are few more things you can do while sharing.

You can see there are two icons on the lower left corner of the area which appears when you are writing a status.

These are to tag your friends in the status and to add a location respectively.

When you click on the left icon, an area will appear saying "Who were you with?".

Start typing a friends name and then select the name from the suggestions.

If you click on the right icon, the balloon, similar area saying "Where are you?" will appear.

Again begin typing name of the place and select from the suggestions.

Note: If you tag a friend in the status/pic, then that post/pic will appear on his wall and whoever can see his wall will be able to see the post/pic.

Lists on Facebook.

Lists help you organise your friends or things you are interested in the way you want to.
After you have the lists created, you can use them to control what you see in your new feed.
You can also control the visibility of your posts easily using the lists.

You can find the list from the menu at the left on the home page.
Just click on "Friends" or "More" and you will see all the list you have.

At the beginning, you will have some default lists in your account.
They are: Close Friends, Acquaintances, Family,etc.
In addition to these, there are few Smart lists.

Smart Lists:

These are the default lists that Facebook creates and maintains automatically depending on your details.

They are created using your details like your location, school/university, workplace, etc.
All your friends that have details common with you are added to these lists automatically.

These lists are smart as the name says.They update themselves automatically.

So, if any of your friend changes his location, workplace or school, the list will get updated automatically.

Creating your own list:

You can create a list of your own and add desired friends to it.

Go to Home > Friends and you will have an option to create a new list at the top right.

You will be asked to enter the name of the list and names of the friends you want to be in that list.

Once the list is created, you can edit it whenever you want.

How to add friends to lists?

Go to your friends profile/timeline, hover upon the friends tab and you will get an option box having several options including "Add to lists:" and names of the lists you have on your profile.

By clicking on the name of the list, that friend will be added to the list.
You can add a friend to multiple lists if you wish.

You need not necessarily go to your friends profile to add him to a list.

There are few more ways to do it.

When you see any update from your friend on your home page, or the Ticker, you can just hover upon his name or pic to get brief details about him.

There you will see the Friends tab too.Click/hover on that tab and you will see the options there.

You can do the same when you send a friend request to someone.

When you send a request, the "Add Friend" tab changes to "Friend Request Sent".

Click on that tab and you will be able to see the same menu there.


How to remove a friend from a list?

Its as simple as you add a friend to a list.

Follow the steps you did for adding your friend to a list and uncheck the name of the list in which you don't want him to be in.

To add/remove several friends to a list at a time, scroll down and look for the Manage list.

Manage your lists:

Smart Lists/Default lists: They can be edited easily and you can change its settings or add/remove friends from the list.
Go to the list you want to edit and click on the "Manage list" to get the options to edit.

Close Friends

Smart list(location)



These two snaps show you the manage list menu for two different default lists that are created automatically.

First one is a smart list based on your location and the second is the Close Friends list.

They have has several options under the "Manage List" as you can see. 

• Rename as the name suggests, can be used to change the name of the list.
• Edit List is to quickly add/remove friends from the list.
• Choose Update Types allows you to select what updates you would like to see from the people in that list. You can select/deselect the types of updates(eg: status updates, photos, comments and likes, etc.) you want.

The "Edit Radius" option is exclusive for the smart list based on your location. It helps you to set the radius around the location and all the friends within that radius are added to the list automatically.

There is a "Notifications" tab in the close friends list as you can see in the snapshot.
This can be used to receive/stop-receiving a notification when a friend in that list posts something.

There are some more exclusive options for other lists which allow you to manage your list.
The list based on your school has a "Pick Range" option which can help you to set the age range of the friends you want to appear in that list.

Lists created by you: They can be managed in the same was as the smart lists.

Go to the list and click on the "Manage List" tab to get the options.

• Rename List to change the name of the list.
• Edit List to add/remove friends.
• Choose Update Types... to choose what updates you want to see from those friends.
• Delete List is an option which you will find only for the lists you have created. You can delete the list using this option.
  Please note that deleting the list will only delete the list from your profile not the friends in that list. Those friends will still remain as your friends on Facebook.

How to delete a list?

As you can see right above, there is an option for deleting the list you have created.
Using that option you can delete the list.
But it is not possible to delete a smart list or any default list(close friends, acquaintances, etc.).
You can archive a smart list but not delete it.
There is an archive option in the manage list menu for a smart list to do that.
Archiving the list will not delete it but only archive it.


Restricted list:

This is a list which is present in your profile by default.
Initially it will not have any friend. Also it is not like a smart list which works automatically at times.
This list is to help you restrict some people from seeing some content on your profile.
Your friends in this list will not be able to see your posts, pics, some part of the info, etc. if you add them to the restricted list.
This is as good as blocking or unfriending someone. The advantage is that the person will be your friend on Facebook but wont be able to see everything.

What the friends in this list will be able to see is your posts which are public or the posts which they are tagged in.

One more important feature is that those friends in the restricted list will never know that they are in your restricted list and you dont have to change too many settings for that.