In an invitation-only press meeting yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced three major new features meant to help improve user control over privacy and sharing, including:
- The ability to download a ZIP file of every piece of information you’ve ever shared with Facebook
- A revamped dashboard to help users understand what information they are sharing with third-party applications
- Significant changes to Facebook Groups
It is the changes to Facebook Groups that have the most implications for marketers and PR professionals. According to an article by Oliver Chiang at Forbes, the changes help users better communicate with “clusters” of friends.
In the new Groups, users will be able to create a group, and then tag others as being members of it. In turn, other users who are members of the group can also tag new group members. This is similar to the tag interface that already exists for photos on Facebook.
The new Groups interface will also have three components: shared space, group chat and email lists. The latter two are exactly what they sound like. Shared Space is a section within Facebook where groups can share communications, photos and other content.
For more information, head to NPR and read this summary article on Facebook’s updates.