DISQUS

ruthsias · 1 month ago

That is so funny, today I started a Group in FB and a shortly after it went live, poof! It changed to the "new look"...thanks for explaining that, clears up the mystery. You guys Rock!

Jeffrey · 1 month ago

Groups already had their own walls. The new design just makes the wall more prominent and makes the group's description less prominent. This is not good. The wall of a group is not the main point of it. I care more about the point of the group than I care about who "lols" the group or what Joe Public thinks of it.

Jim Reid · 1 month ago

I disagree. Too many people join groups on Facebook to simply show support for a cause or affiliation with a group without actually using the Group features.. Facebook want to show the primary focus of Groups is for interaction between members. Making the Group Wall more prominent, adding commenting and likes, and having it supply data to members' News Feeds pushes people to interact with the Group more.

Jeff Strank · 1 month ago

It seems clear that the Groups are geared to member-to-member communications but I think the unanswered question so far is whether a Group admin can publish an update into the Feed that goes to all members, thereby bypassing the current 5,000 member cut-off?

For what it's worth, I just published something in a large group I admin and I don't see any evidence thus far that it went into the Feed of all the members. It's definitely problematic, in my opinion, that you are, in effect, punished for creating a successful group by not being able to reach its members once the membership exceeds 5,000. I'm hoping this fixes that but my initial test (granted, five minutes ago) seems to show otherwise.

Jim Reid · 1 month ago

The announcement from Facebook mentioned that your posts in a Group's Wall will only go into the New Feed for people that are also your friends on Facebook. I think this applies to both group members and admins.

dbreshears · 1 month ago

That's unfortunate. There should be an opt-in feature that allows users to receive updates from any contributor to a group page.

rafael armstrong · 1 month ago

Why not just rename "groups" and fold them into the "pages" concept? If they essentially perform a broadly similar function-- i.e., to collect a group of users w/a common interest in one place-- then, despite the type of interaction that takes place there (one-on-one in "groups" vs. one-to-many in "pages"), it feels to me redundant to have them as separate entities, when one category would suffice.

Adam Ostrow · 1 month ago

It does sorta seem like adding an "everyone can post" option to Pages would be basically the same thing as Groups at this point.

Jim Reid · 1 month ago

There are other differences between Groups and Pages. For example, the Photos application works differently for each. The Photo app on Pages allows admins and fans to post photos into the Page's photo albums. The Photo app in Groups allows members to post to a group photo album directly, too. But it also lets you link in photos from your own albums to the group. This way, you don't have two copies of the photos, each with separate tags and comments. Another difference is that an admin posting to a Page has the post show as "from" the Page itself, whereas admin posts to a group still show up from the admin himself. Lastly, Facebook restricts Page creation more than Group creation. Our intramural kickball team is name "Ballz Deep." I could create a Group but not a Page for the team due to Facebook's restrictions on Page names.

grantkikkert · 1 month ago

Jim... I feel your pain. My band is named "Nuts In A Blender" and we were restricted from creating a page because of our name. Simply ridiculous.

My dissatisfaction with groups is that #1- I can't anomynously post to our Facebook Group wall as an admin... instead It comes up as my personal Facebook account posting to the wall. #2- I find that new wall posts (like pics or video) don't show up in news feeds. Pretty lame... sorta defeats the whole purpose of having a centralized group to communicating with. Instead I must now spam (send message) group members with updates. That's the last thing I want to do.

dbreshears · 1 month ago

From a social architecture perspective, they should perform very different functions (and according to Facebook's explanation of the difference between the two, they theoretically do). A group is a gathering place based on shared affinities, the content of which is generated by its members, and the shared interests are generally broader than a single brand, celebrity, band, etc. Interactions on group pages may be one-to-one, but they may also be one-to-many and many-to-many via discussions and other applications. Pages, on the other hand, are gathering places based on a shared affinity with a particular brand, celebrity, band, etc., the content of which is primarily generated by that entity's representative(s) (and, to a lesser extent, by the wall postings and contributions of fans), and the primary interaction, as you noted, is one-to-many (although, once again, one-to-one and many-to-many interactions are also supported). If Facebook really wants to make groups useful, they'll figure out a way to link pages to groups. For example, a group for soccer fans should also link to pages for Arsenal fans, Adidas fans, and a page for my son's YMCA team.

Facebook User · 1 month ago

Much needed updates..

Liz Teschler · 1 month ago

Woo hoo - WTG Facebook! The way things are, groups are rather antiquated. But as Facebook has been cracking down on non-official pages, it's about time they get some greater functionality back into groups. Can't wait to see it first hand! :)

Central Historian · 1 month ago

Great news for those of us using groups to organize class reunions. It will really help to be able to broadcast news instead of relying on people to check in with the group once in a while after they join.

rasinen · 1 month ago

Good! On Facebook we've got a Group and a Page for Motorize Your Bike. It'll be interesting to see if this impacts our content strategy.

Le'Andre · 1 month ago

quick question, so if you are the creator of the group will everyone in the group see the post the creater put up on their news walls?

Yongsub Shin · 1 month ago

I hope that is the case... :S

Yongsub Shin · 1 month ago

Facebook Group 드디어 좀 모습을 바꾸는구나!! :)

Le'Andre · 1 month ago

I definately do hope so!! i neeed an answer to this please??

David Pye · 1 month ago

I would love it if they'd include an RSS widget. Specifically, the ability to syndicate a feed and pull it (at least headlines) onto the group page. That has always seemed like a fundamental oversight to me.

Mati · 1 month ago

Small local biz used a group initially, switched to a page because of the feed. So do they go back to the group (which clients I have to say join more easily - guess the "Fan" idea feels like a real commitment). I'm for rolling it all together, just make my life easier.

kia sophia · 1 month ago

Gross. I administrate a group page on Facebook and the "makeover" just threw off my organization of the page. I would've like a head's up, so I could reorganize in advance.

Also, for the purpose of my group (a student organization) this layout is pretty unhelpful. Visitors to our pages should be getting the description of the group and our latest announcements (which I had under "group news") first...not some junk random (well meaning members) have posted on our wall. I mean we've got a girl that post about her potluck every week, that is not the first thing you should be seeing when you visit our page.

Completely uncool. If we wanted a "fan page", we would make a "fan page".

Jim Reid · 1 month ago

Hopefully Facebook will add the option to select the initial tab displayed to users of a Group the same way they do with Pages. This would allow you to have people land on the Info tab first.

Jim Reid · 1 month ago

It looks like Facebook used a different solution; they added an Information box on the Wall page to go with the Info tab.

Jason Rosado · 1 month ago

I just noticed the difference a few minutes ago, posted about my elation in my FB status, and then did a news search on the change, and found your post.

Thanks for the update, Mash!

I've been waiting for this kind of change for some time. Glad to see we're moving in the right direction!

Best,
BizCoachJason

Matt Santiago Torres · 1 month ago

Jesus, just hope people actually put them to use instead of using them as a "badge" for things like "I Heart Sleep!".

Next thing should be the events, Facebook's event calendar works in a very basic way but needs a major overhaul to realize the incredible potential it holds.

mechanesthesia · 1 month ago

I've always thought Facebooks events were great. I actually help a friend run a weekly event, and I make a lot of event pages for it on Facebook. I think it's great. I have it integrated to my Google Calendar.

What else would you like to see on it? I think it's great, I actually can't think of any way to make it better.

I just wish MySpace events would be like Facebook's.

Henry · 1 month ago

Yes,glad to see the information
definitely facebook need to update to atract more and more person.

mechanesthesia · 1 month ago

I have an idea, why doesn't Facebook just merge groups and fan pages into one entity?

Jim Reid · 1 month ago

Because, as the Facebook blog post mentions, they are designed for different purposes. Look at my post above for a few of the features that set them apart from one another.

lucy whitehouse · 1 month ago

i fance u

zoelee · 1 month ago

Was there not a way they could do this and keep it looking tidy like a group. Pages can just look cluttered and messy.

MC Ecto Cooler · 1 month ago

Finally, a more effective way to express my political views in the Sponge Bob 4 President!! group

Jen · 1 month ago

Facebook groups still don't compare to what Ning has to offer.

facebook-1358196090 · 1 month ago

I want to know what FaceBook is doing about all the suspended accounts they unjustly suspended!

George Kao · 1 month ago

What will NOT appear in News Feeds with the new Groups redesign:
News Discussion posts and comments within discussion threads

What WILL appear:
* The wall postings (to groups) of your friends who also happen to be in the same Group
* New links, photos, videos, or wall postings posted to the Group by the Group Admin

Can someone confirm if these are true?

Jack Yan · 1 month ago

It makes even less sense to separate fan pages and groups now. While Facebook has given that explanation, considering group messages (with the caveat you make in the post) and fan messages now both appear on members’ feeds, the distinction is irrelevant. Put simply, messages sent by fans to the fan page should behave in the same way as group messages.

Interestingly, this is one of the few surprise Facebook changes that (a) I like and (b) work.

Jim Reid · 1 month ago

There are other differences between Pages and Groups besides the Wall and New Feeds. See my post above for a few of them.

Greentea · 1 month ago

Discussion board in Facebook group will become useless as people don't bother to click the "Discussion" tab. I hate the new layout!

Jim Reid · 1 month ago

This is a HUGE improvement to Groups. Previously, because Group interactions never appeared in members' News Feeds, activity in most groups was pretty low. Now I can see them becoming a viable tool in Facebook. However, there a couple of features I hope they implement. First, they should add the option of choosing the tab users land on when accessing a Group. This would allow admins to see the Info tab first if they use it to post Group news. Second, I hope they add the ability to add a Group to a custom friend list. I have a default custom friend list as my default News Feed and I would like to add a couple of my Groups to it. The good news is that both of these features are available for Pages, so hopefully it won't be hard for them to add them to Groups.

www.facebook4ever.blogspot.com · 1 month ago

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www.facebook4ever.blogspot.com

sms scrape · 1 month ago

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Jessica Bowen · 1 month ago

i what to go on face book

Name · 1 month ago

Group descriptions seem to be having some issues. Spacing has been disabled so if edited everything will clump into one massive paragraph. Hoping this is fixed soon.

Sarah Booker · 1 month ago

I admin a number of groups on Facebook and dislike the changes.
One of the groups is the largest vegetarian group on Facebook, with many members complaining they can't see discussions properly the way they used to, and dislike not having the news at the top of the page.
It seems to be change for the sake of it.

Peter · 1 month ago

Alright, the new groups system is truly a mess.

First off, can anyone please confirm that the admin option "Non-admins can write on the wall" does not work. I tried to turn of so that members cannot post and it did not work.

Facebook just keeps making it worse and worse. They even bloody removed the auto link on the information tab. LOL.

dbreshears · 1 month ago

It's like putting lipstick on a pig. Groups are a disaster, but they're not beyond repair. I just finished a blog entry about this, and would be very grateful for any comments http://tinyurl.com/yzw2tkz

Jim Kerry Helmer · 1 month ago

Yo let's see how smart facebook is?????? Let's see if they can post a calendar of events to facebook groups. show me the royalties!!!! Just do it!!!!k

footballworldcuptickets · 1 month ago

Your blog post is too nice of football. If you want good entertainment and want to get enjoyment of live matches of pool then get Arsenal Tickets in online market for more enjoyment of holidays.

Chris Marentis · 3 weeks ago

Key here is how to use Facebook Pages and Groups for marketing purposes. Groups are a great way to become a de facto leader in your niche if you can get a following. Pages are the social media equivalent of broadcasting. Both are great marketing tools for different reason. What do others think is the most effective?