The good, the bad and the ugly photos that you never thought would surface! (facebook.com)

Member Name: Emily_09

Product:	facebook.com
Date:	07/09/09 (43 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great for keeping in touch, range of features for all ages

Disadvantages: Addictive, people can upload photos of you without your permission

I created my Facebook profile around a year ago and now only wish that I had done it sooner. Although extremely addictive, the site is an invaluable way of keeping in touch with those friends that you hardly ever see, as well as catching up with long lost relatives and classmates.

So what is Facebook?
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Facebook is a free social networking site, on which members create a profile for themselves and can then interact with other people, upload photos and join groups based on their interests.

Who is Facebook aimed at?
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One of the best things about Facebook is that anyone can use it. My parents, aunties and even grandparents have their own profiles and although it took a bit of explaining to get some of them started, now they are teaching me how to use certain aspects of the site! The site is also very secure and nobody can see your profile unless you allow them to, by accepting them as one of your friends, so it is safer than some of the other social networking sites.

How do I create an account?
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Creating a Facebook account is very easy. Simply log on to www.facebook.com and enter your details on the homepage. It takes no time at all to create your profile which you can then build up over time.

So what does Facebook offer?
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Searching for and adding friends
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By typing a friends name into the search box at the top of your profile you can see whether your friends are on Facebook Some people are easier to find than others and you can have some difficulty finding people especially if they have a common surname or a name that is difficult to spell. Once you find someone, however you can 'add them as a friend' and, providing that they accept you, you can view their profile.

Status updates
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By using this feature you can let you friends know what you are up to throughout the week. You simply type something in the box 'What's on you mind' and it will appear on your friends home pages. This is a great feature for keeping up with all the gossip from all of your friends.

Applications
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You can also play games through Facebook and there are a range of applications that allow you to build your own farm,restaurant,city etc while interacting with you friends. This is good if you're into games but personally I don't really use this feature. My cousins do however and say that the games are very addictive which can be good or bad depending on how you view it!

Commenting/messaging people
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You can interact on a individual level with friends either by leaving them comments or sending them messages. Comments appear on their profile for all their friends to see but if you want to tell them something private you can send them a message which appears in their inbox so that only they can read it. This is good as Facebook can be very open and sometimes you don't always want people to know everything about your life!

Photos
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It is very easy to upload photos from your computer onto your profile and this is a good way of sharing images of your new baby, new dog or annual holiday with your friends. One thing that is not so good however, is that people can upload photos of you without your permission which can be humiliating as those photos from that drunken night out suddenly appear. You can ask your friends to remove the pictures but depending on how nice they are they won't always do it!

Groups
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You can join groups on Facebook to express your opinion on certain issues. This can be anything from your favourite band to something controversial in the news and is good for interacting with people with similar views. You can also invite people to join groups although this can become very annoying when you get hundreds of invites to groups you would never want to join in a hundred years.

Instant messaging
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Another Facebook application is an instant messenger. This basically works like msn and allows you to talk to your Facebook friends through a series of instant messages. You can choose whether you want to be shown as 'online' to your friends so if you don't want to use this feature you don't have to. If you do have msn you probably won't use this feature as it's very similar although it's useful if you don't have another instant messaging

One of the only disadvantages of Facebook is that it can become very addictive and I find myself logging on many times a day! Overall though it is definitely a useful way of keeping in touch with people and you can speak to friends or relatives from all over the world. I would highly recommend Facebook to anyone with access to the Internet as it offers something for everyone.

Summary: 5 stars