Chapter 6
In This Chapter
Using the Facebook smartphone app
Using the Facebook mobile website
Using Facebook on simple mobile phones
Checking in
The capability to go mobile is certainly a big reason why Facebook has experienced such success. Take Facebook with you to capture parts of your life and share it with family and friends. Picture this: You’re at a ball game, you catch a fly ball (we’ve seen it on TV so we know it happens), and you want to share that excitement with your friends. What do you do? You share it on Facebook — not just a status update but also a picture of the ball as visual proof of your story.
Facebook also has implemented Location Services into the mobile experience. That’s where Facebook uses GPS and other services to note where you are in an update, if you allow it to. With Location Services on, you can check in to venues and tag that place on your update. In this chapter, we talk about what Facebook is like when you go mobile.
Many Facebook features that you’re accustomed to on your full-screen computer browser can be accessed through the mobile site or a mobile app on your smartphone. The site has been reformatted to fit the phone’s screen, and you use touchscreen features in most cases. Facebook is a little different in your mobile browser or smartphone app, but it’s still familiar.
You can not only update statuses, share photos, and more but also take advantage of Location Services, present in many smartphones. So although you give up some features in the standard Facebook site, you gain other features. Furthermore, most phones have cameras, so you can easily share a little piece of every experience you have by snapping a shot and sending it directly to Facebook.
Going mobile is a great way to enjoy Facebook. As Facebook continues to improve its mobile site and apps, it enables you to access more features that previously were limited to only the desktop version of the site. As shown in Figure 6-1, Facebook mobile allows you to access the search feature, your personal timeline and business page, your news feed (just as you would see it on your desktop), all your groups, and chat services.
Here’s a rundown of the major features of the smartphone app:
To view your news feed by top stories or most recent stories, select the navigation menu in the top-left corner, tap the gear icon next to the news feed, and make your choice from the menu that appears.
As you browse your mobile news feed, you see previews of pictures, along with the option to Like or comment on an update. You also see a note of how many comments or Likes a post has received.
To post a status update using the Facebook app, follow these steps:
The Write Post screen appears, as shown in Figure 6-6.
The friend icon looks like a silhouette with a plus sign. A screen appears with a list of friends in alphabetical order.
Facebook also provides a list of all your friends, with suggested friends near the top.
You can also tag people in the photos you select.
You see your photo or photos in your status update box.
The icon changes after you update this setting.
The limitations of mobile apps grow fewer and fewer as the capabilities of mobile devices increase. The main limitation is a smartphone’s smaller screen size, which changes the way you use the functions of Facebook. And because touchscreen devices are common, the way you interact with the application is different.
Finally, iOS (the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad operating systems) and the Android operating system are the most popular smartphone and tablet OSes. If your mobile phone doesn't use one of these operating systems, it might have fewer features because less development attention is paid to less popular mobile operating systems.
Facebook’s mobile website is called Facebook Touch Mobile. The look and functionality of the Facebook mobile website (not the smartphone app) differs little from one mobile device to the next because much of the user interface is built into the website, not the device’s operating system. With the mobile site, Facebook detects what browser you’re using and loads the compatible version of the mobile site.
To access Facebook Touch Mobile, simply open your (touchscreen) mobile device’s browser and type touch.facebook.com. Your browser is automatically detected and the mobile site loads. Figure 6-7 shows a Facebook business page using the Facebook Touch Mobile site on an Android phone. This site looks similar on iPhone devices as well.
If you want to go mobile but don’t have a smartphone, you can still post Facebook updates using text messages on a regular cellphone. With Facebook’s text-based services, you can
All these features are performed by texting the appropriate code to Facebook’s short code 32665 (which spells FBOOK on your alphanumeric phone keypad).
To be able to use Facebook via SMS (that is, text messages), you first have to set up your mobile phone with your Facebook account. To do so, follow these steps:
The General Account Settings page appears.
The Mobile Settings page appears, so you can add your mobile phone to your Facebook account.
If prompted to add your password, do so.
The Activate Facebook Texts dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 6-8, asking for the confirmation code. You should receive a text message with that code within a few minutes.
You have completed the process of enabling Facebook SMS messages for your phone.
After you confirm your cellphone number with Facebook, you can use Facebook SMS features to keep your friends up-do-date and vice versa, no matter what kind of mobile phone you have. Here’s how:
If you don’t want your Facebook friends to have access to your mobile number via Facebook, simply disable the setting. As you can see in Figure 6-9, two check boxes allow friends to send you text messages and to share your number with friends. Deselect these check boxes to keep your mobile number private.
If you need to change the mobile number associated with your account, click the gear icon and choose Account Settings. Click Mobile, and then click the Remove link next to your mobile number on the Mobile Settings page. After doing this, you need to go through the setup process to add a new phone number, as described in the earlier section, “Setting up your Facebook account to accept text messages.”
If you want to text (send) pictures to Facebook from a simple cellphone, you can do so by sending a text (MMS) message. To do this, text photos to 32665, and you will receive a message telling you the e-mail address to send pictures to. If your mobile plan and phone support picture mail, you can send a message to an e-mail address in the same way you would text to another phone number. When you text a picture to the Facebook e-mail address, Facebook updates your status with the photo that you included in your message.
When you are out and about, Facebook Places allows you to check in to a physical location (for instance, a restaurant) with your mobile phone. Your check-in becomes a status update in the news feed, with location information telling your friends where you are. Places is a social utility to connect with friends who work, live, or study around you. Because people use Facebook to connect with others, Places is a way to connect with others in real life while also connecting on Facebook.
To use Places, you need to enable Location Services on your smartphone so that Facebook can search for places near you based on your GPS location. Places allows you to see other people who have checked in to that location, as well as tag friends who are with you at that time. Being tagged in Places by a friend is much like being mentioned in a status update.
Facebook places are locations listed in Facebook where people can post an update that they are there, or comment and find out who else has checked in to that location. In some cases, a business may have merged their Places listing with their business page, which makes the place and the business page one and the same. In this case, when you check in at that business, your update will link to the business page.
Have you ever gone to a concert or sporting event, only to find out later that your friends were there as well? With Facebook Places, you can connect in real time with friends who choose to check in to Places.
Recently, Jamie went to a football game and checked in via Facebook Places. As he checked in, he discovered a friend had checked in as well! Although thousands of people were at the game, Places allowed Jamie to discover friends who were there.
You can use Places on an iPhone or on Android devices, as well as using the browser of any web-enabled mobile device. The examples in the following sections use the mobile version of Facebook. The iPhone and Android apps may look a little different, but most of the functionality is the same.
To use Facebook Places, you can access the function from your smartphone (using GPS or Location Services), or you can access it from your computer (such as a laptop while you’re at a location). To access Places with a mobile device, you need a smartphone to access the full mobile browser capabilities. You must enable Location Services so that Facebook can access your phone’s location and find places near you. The first time you use Places, you see a screen asking you to allow Facebook permission to access Location Services.
When you’re at a location where you'd like to check in, pull out your mobile phone and open Facebook. (You can open Facebook through your phone’s browser or use the Facebook app.) Tap the Status button at the top of the screen. A box appears, where you can enter your status.
To check in to a location on your smartphone, follow these steps:
Alternatively, you can tap Check In on the opening screen of your mobile app.
If you don’t see the place in the list, search for it by name. If the place isn’t already in your Places list, you see the option to add it.
If you're using one of Facebook’s official apps (on an iPhone or an Android device), what you see on the device may look a little different than the screen in Figure 6-10.
After you select the place and add a status update, that place becomes a link in your status update.
When you tag friends, Facebook links to their timelines in your update and indicates that they are with you where you checked in. If they’re already using Places, it will be as if they checked in without having to do anything. Tagging a friend will appear in your check-in details, as well as on your friends’ timelines.
If you accidentally tag the wrong person, you can remove the tag by deleting the person's name or by tapping the check mark that appears next to his or her name.
You can find out who else is on Places in two ways: