The following letter was posted on Facebook by the founder, Mark Zuckerberg, in response to the site reaching 350 million users. Looks like Mark has some interesting plans for the future...

It has been a great year for making the world more open and connected. Thanks to your help, more than 350 million people around the world are using Facebook to share their lives online.

To make this possible, we have focused on giving you the tools you need to share and control your information. Starting with the very first version of Facebook five years ago, we've built tools that help you control what you share with which individuals and groups of people. Our work to improve privacy continues today.

Facebook's current privacy model revolves around "networks" — communities for your school, your company or your region. This worked well when Facebook was mostly used by students, since it made sense that a student might want to share content with their fellow students.

Over time people also asked us to add networks for companies and regions as well. Today we even have networks for some entire countries, like India and China.

However, as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members and we've concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. Almost 50 percent of all Facebook users are members of regional networks, so this is an important issue for us. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have even more control of their information.

The plan we've come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.

We're adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we'll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings. If you want to read more about this, we began discussing this plan back in July.

Since this update will remove regional networks and create some new settings, in the next couple of weeks we'll ask you to review and update your privacy settings. You'll see a message that will explain the changes and take you to a page where you can update your settings. When you're finished, we'll show you a confirmation page so you can make sure you chose the right settings for you. As always, once you're done you'll still be able to change your settings whenever you want.

We've worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you, but we also understand that everyone's needs are different. We'll suggest settings for you based on your current level of privacy, but the best way for you to find the right settings is to read through all your options and customize them for yourself. I encourage you to do this and consider who you're sharing with online.

Thanks for being a part of making Facebook what it is today, and for helping to make the world more open and connected.


Mark Zuckerberg

This is a power of social networking sites, Facebook one of them. These web 2.0 sites now going growing fast due to very user friendly interface. And they are attracting more & more users.

The following letter was posted on Facebook by the founder, Mark Zuckerberg, in response to the site reaching 350 million users. Looks like Mark has some interesting plans for the future...

It has been a great year for making the world more open and connected. Thanks to your help, more than 350 million people around the world are using Facebook to share their lives online.

To make this possible, we have focused on giving you the tools you need to share and control your information. Starting with the very first version of Facebook five years ago, we've built tools that help you control what you share with which individuals and groups of people. Our work to improve privacy continues today.

Facebook's current privacy model revolves around "networks" — communities for your school, your company or your region. This worked well when Facebook was mostly used by students, since it made sense that a student might want to share content with their fellow students.

Over time people also asked us to add networks for companies and regions as well. Today we even have networks for some entire countries, like India and China.

However, as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members and we've concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. Almost 50 percent of all Facebook users are members of regional networks, so this is an important issue for us. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have even more control of their information.

The plan we've come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.

We're adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we'll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings. If you want to read more about this, we began discussing this plan back in July.

Since this update will remove regional networks and create some new settings, in the next couple of weeks we'll ask you to review and update your privacy settings. You'll see a message that will explain the changes and take you to a page where you can update your settings. When you're finished, we'll show you a confirmation page so you can make sure you chose the right settings for you. As always, once you're done you'll still be able to change your settings whenever you want.

We've worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you, but we also understand that everyone's needs are different. We'll suggest settings for you based on your current level of privacy, but the best way for you to find the right settings is to read through all your options and customize them for yourself. I encourage you to do this and consider who you're sharing with online.

Thanks for being a part of making Facebook what it is today, and for helping to make the world more open and connected.


Mark Zuckerberg

These are good improvements and for this reasons facebook is getting more importance whether it is for personal use or for business purposes.

Well Bundle of Congratulations to Mark Zuckerberg and also one request that please don't think about charging fee to facebook users, you this decision will flop the facebook.

facebook as agressively progress over the years, congrats to them! however along with the enormous growth comes along with enormous problems. probably in the near future they will resolve their current issues.

i would like to share a link for cnet.com. its about devising the infrastructure to support the social network's hypergrowth. hope you like it. http://news.cnet.com/1606-2_3-50002740.html?tag=mncol

I cannot agree more with the comment about not charging a fee for facebook. Do that and the pooch is well and truly screwed!

Facebook is an international phenomenom, and is huge across the globe!

Once upon a time, Myspace was the biggest and fastest growing social media online community and then it got too big for its britches. Where is Tom now? Facebook have learned the lessons from Myspace and has applied it well.

Once upon a time, Myspace was the biggest and fastest growing social media online community and then it got too big for its britches. Where is Tom now? Facebook have learned the lessons from Myspace and has applied it well.

And the biggest lesson seems to be minimize the number of pedophiles on the network!

Facebook offers a good and free communicating platform. I like it and I'm one member of it.

Facebook offers a good and free communicating platform. I like it and I'm one member of it.

He's right it's free but it seem to be a problem with ads it annoying

He's right it's free but it seem to be a problem with ads it annoying

Compared to other sites I do not find the ads on Facebook to be as distracting. Is there something in particular that you experience that is particularly annoying? Perhaps I am not paying as much attention to all of the advertising but I am interested to know your thoughts.

He's right it's free but it seem to be a problem with ads it annoying

which part of the facebook ads are annoying, for me the ads are just alright.

facebook proved that it is the biggest social media site, and I believe that the good thing about facebook is that it takes what people suggest into consideration, and updates its features accordingly. So, in case someone has problems with Ads for example, simply expressing what exactly makes a problem, and I'm sure Facebook will listen and consider such suggestions.

Facebook have outdone themselves being the number 1 social networking site nowadays because of its features and activities in store for all members like the popular farmville.

Support facebook forever !! Goodluck on developing more useful and secure features for all of us !! ;)

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