Mark Zuckerberg’s disdain for privacy and the end user of Facebook is well known at this point, but if enough people complain, then things get changed.  Facebook had a big media event yesterday, no doubt timed to take some of the sting away from the release of The Social Network and its critical portrait of Facebook’s founder.  Zuckerberg announced several new features for the world’s most popular social networking website, including a new Facebook grouping feature and downloading ability for Facebook information.

Facebook groups is the key new feature, as that’s the one most likely to be used by people who aren’t paranoid about constantly backing up information via download.  Zuck described the new Facebook group feature as solving, “the biggest problem in social networking.”  He added, “A lot of people talk about this as a privacy problem, but I think even more than that, it’s an annoying [others] problem.  A user might say, ‘I would post this, but do I really want to bug all my friends who don’t like jogging how great it is that I had an awesome jog this morning?'”

That’s the key to Facebook groups.  You can organize your friends by peer group or shared interest, and thus ensure that your work friends get (or don’t get) work updates, your school friends get school updates, and your social friends get social updates.  There’s no more embarrassing cross-group updates, complicated lists, or backlash against your status updates.

Tags: Facebook, new features for Facebook, Groups, new Facebook groups feature, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook adds new features, downloadable Facebook, social media, Facebook improves privacy, social platform

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