Friday, June 26th, 2009 by Jordan McCollum

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Facebook Taking Status Updates Public (A La Twitter)

This week, Facebook announced some coming changes to your status updates. Soon, just like with Twitter, you’ll have the option to make them public—but not just to everyone on the world’s most popular social network, but everyone around the world. (You know, with Internet access.)

facebook status updates everyone

Because this feature is being implemented on the Facebook Publisher, you can add more to your newsstream than just text updates and links. The buttons below the text area allow you to add photos, videos and announcements or other integrations from your apps that have integrated with the publisher.

Facebook also gave an in-depth explanation of each level of access:

  • Everyone: Anyone, on or off, of Facebook can see it.
  • Friends and Networks: People you have confirmed as friends and people in any school or work networks that you’ve joined can see it.
  • Friends of Friends: Anyone who is friends with a friend of yours can see it.
  • Friends: Only people you have confirmed as friends can see it.
  • Custom: Choose any friend or Friend List to include or exclude from seeing that piece of content.

According to Inside Facebook, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg promised more granular privacy controls recently, and this may have been exactly what he meant.

Right now, this feature is being tested with users who have chosen to set their profile and status updates to “Everyone,” but for everyone else, the Publisher settings will remain the same.

What do you think? Will multi-media, real-time updates on a site that already has widespread traction ever take the place of Twitter in your heart (and the media’s)?


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8 comments on “Facebook Taking Status Updates Public (A La Twitter)”

  1. jlbraaten Says:

    June 27th, 2009 at 4:19 pm

    Looks like just one more chance to claim some SERPs. We best make sure our status updates are representative of our overall online brand.

    jlbraaten’s last blog post..Choosing Content for a Usable Website

  2. Small Business Mavericks » Blog Archive » How Facebook Is Competing With Twitter Says:

    June 27th, 2009 at 7:38 pm

    [...] time communication for a couple of years now. Facebook has flirted with it, but they’ve just upped the stakes. Quite frankly, I like [...]

  3. Richael Neet Says:

    June 27th, 2009 at 10:36 pm

    I really like this new feature. Open up personal status to your friends only, and to claim some Facebook traffic, open the site related details to public. Awesome!!!

    Richael Neet’s last blog post..Domain Registration Length – Does it Matter?

  4. Jennifer O'Hern Says:

    June 28th, 2009 at 7:18 pm

    One more thing to think/worry about. Thanks for the heads up.

  5. Deborah Richmond Says:

    June 28th, 2009 at 8:08 pm

    The idea of short video messages as your update is intriguing. I think that idea will really take off.

  6. Jhelo Cruz Says:

    June 28th, 2009 at 9:09 pm

    I like this new feature of Facebook! Thanks for the information.

    Jhelo Cruz’s last blog post..Celebrating the 111th Year of Philippine Independence

  7. Facebook Status Updates Going Public - Google Live Search Says:

    June 30th, 2009 at 4:53 pm

    [...] Comments [...]

  8. World News Says:

    July 6th, 2009 at 6:40 pm

    [...] Facebook Taking Status Updates Public (A La Twitter) [...]