Facebook: The Missing Manual

Facebook has radically changed its user interface making parts of this book obsolete. The directions are still valid - but the page illustrations may not match what you see on the screen. Things could get a bit confusing and require a bit of time and effort to figure out. Facebook: The Missing Manual was published in January, 2008 and had about 50 million members. As this review is being written, Facebook is expecting to log its 200th million member. In a way, practically everyone is on Facebook - and Facebook can be a very confusing environment when you first encounter it. This books takes the mystery out of it. Step by step, page by page, it takes you on an almoast complete tour of Facebook, including many of the nooks and crannies. E. A Vander Veer has a marvelously crisp writing style that moves along snappily. Either she is an excellent self-editor or has a good editing team or both. Words are properly used without excessive padding. Structure is excellent with fully declarative sentences. Frankly, it is remarkable to see what is essentially technical writing so well done. There are more than adequate illustrations, though many of them do not resemble current Facebook screens. Take your time and you shouldn't have any trouble working out the differences. The book is organized into four broad parts with a fifth containing appendices, bibliography and other resources. Chapters are laid out in logical order and stick pretty much to a single subject, making for a delightful read. Three of the chapters seem a bit of stretch, gathered under the section on "Doing Business with Facebook". I think these chapters may have been added to fatten up the book. While they may not add much, they certainly don't take anything away from the rest of the book. On the whole, this is a great book to read if you are just contemplating becoming involved with the Facebook craze. And it is practically an essential if you are a new Facebook user. Well worth the few dollars it costs. Jerry

As do other books on the subject, the one covers the basics: setting up a profile, finding friends, how to use the Wall, news feeds, communication options, applications & add-ons, joining and setting up groups, buying and selling things, and going mobile. But it's particularly strong on business uses of FB, including hiring, collaborating on projects, and file sharing. The author discusses setting up FB Events to organize get-togethers for co-workers and clients, how to use FB Marketplace to "buy or sell just about anything," and how to use FB to find employees and to find employment.

***** I bought four Facebook books to help me figure out how to more effectively use Facebook and this is far and away the best. Although I've been a light user of Facebook for over a year, I've had trouble figuring out things like privacy, security, applications, and more. I'm the sort of person who likes to understand what's behind what I'm doing or what I'm adding to my profile, and this book fits the bill. It is well-organized and easy to use for reference after reading once through. It is funny, useful, and interesting to read. Most important to me, it is easy to understand, explaining things via screen shots (pictures in the book of what your screen looks like). The book also includes access to a web site with links to everything mentioned in the book as well. I found out answers to some of my basic questions such the following: What is a poke? How do I send anonymous gifts? What is the difference between news feeds, mini-feeds, and notifications? How do you create an event? Most importantly, this book discusses security and privacy issues at length. If you are familiar with all of the above, or have been using Facebook for a while and know your way around, this probably wouldn't be the book for you. But if any of the above intrigues you, you will love the format, style, and information found in this book. Highly recommended. *****

I have been a Facebook user since 2005, when the social network was limited only to college kids (I worked in a college: I was not a college student at the time). Seeing it evolve as it has in recent months has been a pleasant thing as it has allowed me to reconnect with old friends that I had effectively lost touch with. As a longtime user, I thought I knew most of what Facebook had to offer, but this Missing Manual proved that there was lots more that I had no clue about. I was unaware of the ability to sell things through Facebook, for instance and, also, I was not as clear about the multiple options available for advertisers (though I found the chapter dedicated to this topic a bit limited). I liked that the book was not all praise about the platform: there is clear recognition about the areas that are still confusing and the use of certain names (such as "Pages") for things that could have been named more intuitively. Last, there were an excellent couple of chapters devoted to Privacy and Facebook Mobile (for sure a dimension of the social network that we will see grow in the coming months and years). Overall, the book was a pleasantly useful resource that I highly recommend to anyone who is starting out with Facebook and longtime users alike.

A lot of people could save themselves a ton of grief down the road if they just payed attention to the security suggestions in this manual. Figuring out how to use Facebook isn't too difficult but this book explains the defaults and the options to help protect oneself. Their are screen shots and full instructions. Topics are cross referenced within and the index is pretty decent. If you are a parent trying to keep up with your kids, this could be a real time saver.