Mark Zuckerberg unveiled three new features at the company's headquarters.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gestures during his presentation at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., Wednesday, October 6, 2010.Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg held a live press conference today at the company's headquarters in Palo Alto, California to announce three new features for the social networking site.
The first new application, called Download Your Information, allows users to download everything in their profile information into a zip file, including all of the photos they've posted and been tagged in. If you've ever wanted to save all your wall posts, conversation threads, videos and comments in one place, this is for you. Watch Facebook's video on "Download Your Information."
The second tool unveiled is a Dashboard for apps where Facebook members can control all of the applications they use, including games like Farmville and Mafia Wars. The page will serve as a one-stop shop to control privacy settings and/or delete any apps that they're using on the site.
The third feature that most tech bloggers are excited about is a new Groups tool, designed to give users more privacy.
"Until today, we've made it pretty easy to share with everyone on the site publicly," said Zuckerberg. "But for a lot of people, just your friends isn't actually private."
The Groups tool allows users to choose which friends they communicate with, without posting it publicly to everyone in their network. Facebook calls this "a social solution" to the privacy problem.
"Sometimes you don't want to post something to all of your friends," Zuckerberg explained, "not because you don't want them to know, but because you don't want to annoy them."
"The majority of Facebook users do not upload photos - but 95 percent have a photo of them that they've let users tag," he continued, comparing Groups to the site's photo tool. Essentially, he expects 5-10% of users to create these groups and tag friends to participate in them.
However, unlike previous Facebook changes that have come under fire for affecting user privacy settings, the Groups default setting is "Closed." No one can add you to a Group unless you give them permission.
Rumors ran rampant before the press conference, suggesting Facebook may be unveiling a new phone called FacePhone or that there would be integration of Skype with Facebook Chat. Others suspected a redesign would be coming, but none of those have been announced. Yet.
"We have a bunch more releases coming out in the next month," Zuckerberg added.
>> CNN: Facebook unveils new Groups tool
>> Mashable: Facebook gets hip to data portability
>> FoxNews: Zuckerberg brings Facebook out of 'Lockdown,' unveils Groups
>> TechCrunch: This Was Just Phase One Of Facebook's "Lockdown" - Redesign Still Coming