settings — Lauren MacEwen

Rocky vs. Apollo

Here is a list of differences between Facebook groups and pages.

Groups

In menu bar on your home page
You can easily access your groups and see if there have been any updates.
Privacy Settings
You can choose if you want your group to be completely private, moderately private or completely public.
Ads
You can create ads for your group.
Encourages engagement
By letting members know when people post, either through email or the notifications number next to your group name on the menu, it encourages them to see what the new activity is. The comments section acts as a message board and encourages discussion.
no NFO
Groups bypass NFO because they are on your menu bar, showing if there have been updates. Though group updates come through on your newsfeed, they are not dependent on it to distribute updates.
Member Settings
Members can choose their user setting for the group. You can choose what updates you receive, if you want group chat messages, if you even want the group in your navigation menu. You have control over your group experience.

Pages

On your profile menu bar under “Likes”
This does not show updates and most people don’t know how to find the pages they like.
No Privacy Settings
Pages are public. The only privacy you can implement is if people are allowed to write on your wall.
Ads
You can create ads for your page.
Encourages engagement?
If you post updates that ask for interaction, then your page will encourage engagement. But the page setup itself does not. Your fans do not know about an update unless they see it on their wall or check the page itself.
NFO
Pages are dependent on the newsfeed for distributing information. So if you do not have good NFO, your updates might not even be seen.
No member settings
The only control you have over the information you receive from a page is if you hide the posts in a newsfeed, or if you unlike the page.

Ultimately, groups and pages serve different purposes. Before, pages were the default choice because groups were not very effective and honestly seemed more like a page with a few features that were arguably more cumbersome than valuable. The new group features allow people a different set of options that genuinely add value to usability.

Droid Alarm FAIL!

Having an alarm clock fail is pretty much the last thing you need when you are attending a conference. This is especially frustrating when it is due to bad product design, thank you Droid.

If you have ever been to a conference then you know that they are insane. It is seminar after seminar, networking, chatting, meeting people, more seminars, exhibitions, demos, swag, more networking, parties, chatting people up…ok, do you feel to tired yet? No matter how excited you are to be at the conference it is exhausting.

So Friday night I am getting ready to crash out after a full day of conferencing at Blogworld. I grab my HTC Droid Incredible and set the alarm for 7:30 am. For some reason I was feeling a little paranoid, so I checked it again. Yup, the little alarm clock icon is at the top of the screen. Right before I turn out the lights, I check one last time. Did I mention that I was feeling a little paranoid? But sure enough, that little alarm clock icon was at the top of my screen.

So in the morning when I woke up before the alarm went off I was surprised, but happy since who actually likes the sound of an alarm clock. So I was a little dismayed when I picked up my phone to shut off the alarm before it sounded, to discover that it was 8:30 am. Excuse me? What happened to my alarm? The icon was even still at the top of the screen.

I opened up the alarm and realized that I had not selected the day the alarm needed to go off. On this phone, it is not good enough to just set the alarm you have to select the day you want it to go off. This is great for long term alarm planning, but not for late night alarm setting.

So long story short, The alarm on the HTC Droid Incredible is a huge FAIL!

Facebook Pages vs. Groups

Groups

Pages

Droid Alarm FAIL!