By Harry McCracken
If you think the whole Web is suddenly looking more like Facebook, you’re not imagining things. At its developer conference last week, the 800-pound gorilla of social networks made a bevy of announcements — and all the biggies involved intermingling your life as a Facebook user with other activities around the Internet.
For instance, a new Like button that’s already been rolled out on countless sites — including FoxNews.com — lets you “Like” items such as news articles, and see which your Facebook pals have liked. You can do so right at the site in question, but every time you click Like, your recommendation gets posted to your wall at Facebook, too.
Facebook is working with a handful of sites to implement even tighter integration. Listen to music at Pandora, for instance, and the online radio service may play music by artists that you’ve expressed a fondness for back on Facebook.
With more and more sites letting Facebook collect more and more information about their users, the service’s vast database about people, their preferences, and their relationships will only balloon further…
Whether you’re a very private person or are perfectly happy letting it all hang out, Facebook’s privacy controls are among its most essential features. To find them, go to Facebook, sign in if necessary, click on Account in the upper right-hand corner, then on Privacy Settings. You’ll see these major sections:
[This post is excerpted with Harry McCracken’s permission from his Technologizer blog.]
