Chapter 14. Facebook Mobile
Facebook can be addictive. If you’re away from a computer and feel the need to check in on your Facebook friends or update your status, you can use Facebook Mobile on your cellphone to stay in the loop. Whether you travel a lot or just like to stay connected when you’re between work and home, Facebook Mobile is a handy way to access Facebook without a computer.
How Facebook Mobile Works
Facebook Mobile is an application (Facebook Applications: An Overview) that lets you use your Internet-ready cellphone to:
Interact with Facebook on your phone’s teensy-tiny screen. Facebook’s Mobile Web feature (Using Facebook Mobile) lets you use the browser on your cellphone to see a scaled-down version of the Facebook website. Using your phone’s keypad, you can do things like update your status, find out what your friends are doing, look up people’s phone numbers, and keep tabs on the Groups and events you’ve signed up for.
Tip
If you own a BlackBerry, an iPhone, or another popular "smartphone,” there’s likely a specially designed Facebook application you can use to access Facebook directly from your phone (rather than a scaled-down version of the site). To see if there’s a special application for your phone, point your web browser to www.facebook.com/mobile and scroll down to the “Facebook for your phone” section.
Interact with Facebook via text messages. The Mobile Texts feature (Interacting with Facebook via Text Message) lets you do things on Facebook from your phone without having to go through the mobile version of the Facebook website. (This option is usually faster than the Mobile Web feature, and is the way to go if your phone doesn’t have a web browser; you do, of course, need a phone that lets you send text messages.) If you want to write a quickie message on a friend’s Wall, for example, you can text-message a specific Facebook code (see Interacting with Facebook via Text Message) along with your friend’s name and your message. You can also sign up to receive texts when you get a friend request or when your friends change their status, post on your Wall, or send you a Facebook message.
Upload photos and video clips. Perfect for posting impromptu additions to Groups and events (as well as for tracking project updates), Facebook’s Mobile Uploads feature (Uploading a Picture or Video) lets you sling the media clips you capture with your camera phone or video phone directly to your Facebook account.
Subscribe to your friends’ status updates. You can choose to receive a text message every time one of your Facebook friends updates his Facebook status—useful for keeping your finger on the pulse of close friendships (or team members) when you’re away from your computer.
Like all Facebook applications, Facebook Mobile is free to use. But don’t forget that every time you use Facebook Mobile, you’re likely racking up charges on your cellphone bill. If your phone company charges you every time you use your phone to connect to the Web or send a text message, that means you pay every time you access the Facebook site or poke a Facebook friend via text message.
Setting Up Facebook Mobile
Before you can use Facebook Mobile, you have to do a little bit of easy setup. You just need to activate your phone number and then adjust your mobile settings. The following sections show you how.
Note
Although Facebook Mobile is a Facebook application, you don’t install it the way you do other applications (Adding Applications). Instead, you have to follow the activation process explained in the next section.
Activating Your Phone
Activating your phone means associating a cellphone number with your Facebook account, and then testing the connection between your phone and Facebook. To activate your phone:
At the top right of any Facebook screen, click Account and then, in the drop-down list that appears, click Account Settings. On the Account Settings page, click the Mobile tab.
On the Mobile tab, click the “Register for Facebook Text Messages” link.
In the “Step 1 of 3” box that appears, select your country and cellphone company from the drop-down lists, and then click Next. Facebook Mobile works with most cellphone companies, but if yours isn’t listed, you’re out of luck.
In the “Step 2 of 3” box, follow the instructions to send Facebook a message from your cellphone. When you finish, click Next.
Check your cellphone. It may take a few minutes for the text message with your confirmation code to arrive. If you don’t get a text from Facebook after 15 minutes or so, click the “Step #2” link on the “Step 3 of 3” page and send Facebook a text message one more time, making sure you follow the instructions carefully.
Type your confirmation code into the “Step 3 of 3” box’s text field, turn off the "Add my cell number to my profile” checkbox if you don’t want all your Facebook friends to have your number, and then click Confirm. After you do, Facebook sends a confirmation text message t to your phone and displays a successful activation message across the top of a page you can use to edit your mobile settings. You can now start interacting with Facebook using your cellphone, though it’s a good idea to edit your mobile settings before you get started; see the next section for details.
Tip
If you surfed away from the “Step 3 of 3” box while you were waiting for your confirmation code, no sweat: Just click the “Already receive a mobile confirmation code?” link that appears on the Mobile tab.
Note
If you don’t see a congratulatory message after you type in your confirmation code, make sure you typed the code correctly. If you still can’t get it to work, zip to the top right of any Facebook page and click Account, then click Help Center. In the “Facebook Applications and Features” section, click the Mobile link and then, on the Help page that appears, click "Verifying my mobile device.” Then scroll down and click the “I didn’t receive a confirmation code to verify my account” link. Doing so displays a possible explanation of why Facebook can’t connect to your cellphone, along with a “here” link you can click to contact Facebook for personalized help.
Adjusting Your Settings
You’ll want to adjust your Facebook Mobile settings right after you activate your phone because these settings affect the type, number, and timing of text messages you receive from your Facebook friends. (You may not appreciate getting 50 pokes at 3:00 a.m. from your cut-up, night-owl friend Bob, for example—especially if you have to pay for them.)
To customize your mobile settings:
Head to the Facebook Mobile page. Facebook automatically displays this page after you finish activating your phone (see Setting Up Facebook Mobile). Or, if you surfed away from that page, at the top right of any Facebook page, click the Account link and choose Account Settings; then click the Mobile tab.
On the Mobile tab, use the checkboxes, radio buttons, and drop-down lists to tell Facebook what kinds of text messages you want to receive. When you finish, click Save Preferences.
Tip
You can set up more than one cellphone to work with your Facebook account. To do so, scroll down to the My Phone section of the Mobile tab and click the “manage phones” link. On the page that appears, click the “Add another phone” link and then follow the activation process explained on Setting Up Facebook Mobile.
Using Facebook Mobile
After you’ve activated at least one cellphone and tweaked your mobile settings, you’re ready to use Facebook Mobile. The following sections show you how.
Surfing Facebook from Your Phone
To view and interact with a scaled-down version of Facebook specially designed for cellphones, point your cellphone to http://m.facebook.com and log in with your regular Facebook login and password. (Exactly how you get to the site depends on the cellphone you’re using; check your phone’s manual for instructions.)
Tip
If you own an iPhone, head to the iPhone-optimized version of Facebook at http://iphone.facebook.com.
You can do almost as much on the mobile version of Facebook as you can on the regular version. The kinds of things you probably want to do (and that are easiest to do using the hunt-and-peck method most people employ when using phones as personal computers) include:
Interacting with Facebook via Text Message
You can do many of the quick, basic things you do on Facebook—like updating your status or sending someone a message—more easily by sending a short text message from your cellphone than by using your phone’s screen to browse and interact with the Facebook Mobile website.
To text message Facebook, send a message to 32665 (that’s FBOOK for folks who prefer looking at the letters on the keypad rather than the numbers). Table 14-1 shows you the different things you can do by text messaging 32665. If what you want to text has something to do with another Facebook member, make sure you type in the person’s full name. (And depending on how common that name is, you might have to jockey with your cellphone a bit to make sure you reach the right person; see Uploading a Picture or Video.)
Note
Texting Facebook isn’t instantaneous: It can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours for your actions to be reflected on the site. When they are, Facebook text messages you to let you know (if you’ve told it to; see Adjusting Your Settings).
|
Action |
Code |
Text message example |
|
Update your status[a] |
at a Halloween party | |
|
Delete your last status update | ||
|
search john doe | ||
|
cell john doe | ||
|
Send a message to somebody | ||
|
poke john doe | ||
|
wall john doe congrats on the new gig | ||
|
Send a friend request to somebody | ||
|
Write a note |
note |
note having a great time in vegas |
|
help | ||
[a] You don’t need to type any special code to update your status; simply type the message you want to appear on your profile. | ||
Facebook has set up a spiffy, interactive page where you can practice sending texts to the site. Check it out at www.facebook.com/mobile/?texts=1.
Note
If there happens to be more than one Facebook member named John Doe (and there almost always is), Facebook text messages you back with a list of people you can choose from to make sure your message reaches the John Doe in Springfield who graduated from Stanford in ’88. Simply choose from the list and shoot your message back to Facebook.
Uploading a Picture or Video
If you’ve got a cellphone that snaps pictures or shoots video, you can upload your photos or video clips straight to Facebook. To upload pictures or videos:
Get a special upload email from Facebook. At the top right of any Facebook screen, click the Account link and then choose Account settings. On the My Account screen that appears, click the Mobile tab and then click the "Go to Facebook Mobile” link in the upper-right part of the screen. Then jot down your special upload email address listed in the “Upload via Email” section (or, alternatively, click “Send my upload email to me now” to save your upload email address in your regular email inbox).
Send some pictures or video clips. After you complete step 1 above, you’re good to go: You can send pictures to your special upload email address willy-nilly. (Exactly how you send email from your cellphone depends on the phone; check the manual for instructions.) In the subject line of your message, type a caption for your picture or video; in the body of your message, type in a description.
Subscribing to Friends’ Status Updates
Say you’re out of town and you’ve got a sick friend you want to keep tabs on. You can have Facebook text you your friend’s status each time she updates it. To do so:
Head to your friend’s profile page.
Click the “Subscribe via SMS” link that appears beneath your friend’s profile picture. (You’ll only see this link if you’ve activated at least one cellphone—see Setting Up Facebook Mobile.) Then, in the box that pops up, click Confirm. That’s it! You’re subscribed. The next time your friend updates her status, you’ll get a text message containing the new status.
Note
After you subscribe to a friend’s status updates, Facebook adds that friend to a special Friend List (Inviting People to Be Your Friend) called SMS Subscriptions. To see or change the SMS Subscriptions list (perhaps you want to unsubscribe to your pal’s updates after she gets well): At the top of any Facebook page, click Friends. Then scroll down to the Lists section and click SMS Subscriptions.
Note
If, on the Mobile tab of your Account Settings page, you had previously turned text messages from Facebook off (see Subscribing to Friends’ Status Updates), subscribing to a friend’s SMS updates automatically switches them back on again.
Deactivating Your Phone
If you change your cellphone number or just change your mind about using Facebook Mobile, you can turn off the service quickly and easily.
Note
You don’t have to wait until you get back to your computer to deactivate your cellphone; you can do it right from your phone using the Facebook Mobile site. Either way, simply follow the steps below.
At the top right of any Facebook screen, click Account and then Account Settings.
On the My Account page that appears, click the Mobile tab.
Near the top of the Mobile tab that appears, find the phone number you want to deactivate and click the “remove” link next to it. In the confirmation box that pops up, click the Remove Phone button.
