We hit a big milestone today -- 100 million people around the world are now using Facebook. This is a really gratifying moment for us because it means a lot that you have decided that Facebook is a good, trusted place for you to share your lives with your friends. So we just wanted to take this moment to say, "thanks."

We spend all our time here trying to build the best possible product that enables you to share and stay connected, so the fact that we're growing so quickly all over the world is very rewarding. Thanks for all your support and stay tuned for more great things in the future.

Most people use the internet without being aware of the constant threat of hackers, spammers, and phishers. Due to the nature of the internet, and the nature of malicious software, most websites will at some point need to deal with patching a security hole. All good websites take these issues very seriously, since no one wants users to suffer. At Facebook, where people keep so much of their lives and information, we've built an amazing security team solely focused on making sure our users have a safe experience on the site.

The security team at Facebook is dedicated to investigating and auditing our own code for holes, as well as reaching out to people in an extended community to let us know if we've missed anything. If we get a report of a bug or a hole from a user, a security researcher, a reporter, blogger, or anyone, we check it out and fix it as quickly as possible. In fact, we appreciate it when help comes our way from the many security experts and organizations out there. That's why many of us are attending DEFCON this weekend. DEFCON is one of the largest and oldest running hacker conventions, held in Vegas. By going and learning from other people in the online security space, we make keeping people safe online a joint effort.

Even right now, as we're preparing to leave for DEFCON, we spent most of last night working on a fix for a worm, which was targeting people on Facebook and placing messages on Walls urging users to view a video that pretends to be hosted on a Google or YouTube website. We've identified and blocked the ability to link to the malicious websites from anywhere on Facebook. Less than .002 percent of people on Facebook have been affected, all of whom we notified and suggested steps to remove the malware.

As a Facebook user you can help us protect you by doing the following things:

• Report any spam message or posting you see. The more reports we get, the easier it is for us to respond decisively.


• Never share your Facebook password with anyone. Never. No Facebook employee will ever ask for it, and no one else should know it. If you are ever prompted to log in to Facebook, make sure it's from a legitimate Facebook web address. If something looks or feels off, go directly to www.facebook.com to log in.


• If your Windows PC or Mac is ever infected with malware or a virus, check out these helpful sites: http://www.microsoft.com/security/default.mspx or http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222


• Finally, just as in your off line community, be aware of your surroundings in your online community. If a user doesn't seem right, or says or posts something that you feel is threatening or inappropriate, report it to us.

Last year in May, we held a big developer conference, f8. As you may know, we used f8 to introduce Facebook Platform--a development system that enables developers to build applications on Facebook, where all of our 90 million users can interact with them.

Honestly, the fact that applications grew so quickly was a surprise--even to us. We've learned a lot in this last year, and with success also found a new set of problems that we needed to solve. This year at f8, we talked about a lot of our new solutions and how they all fit together. We'd like to share all of that with you, as well.

At Facebook, we want to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. With that in mind, here are some of the big announcements from f8 08:

• The new profile: You may already know about the new profile, and we hope you've already spent some time looking at the new Facebook. By surfacing more recent and relevant information, and by cleaning up and simplifying the site, we think the new Facebook makes it even easier to connect and communicate with your friends.


• Facebook Connect: Facebook Connect is a new way to use applications, on the open web and not just on Facebook. Soon, you'll be able to use your Facebook account to login and connect on websites throughout the web. Imagine never filling out another profile at a new site, or having to find your friends all over again. Facebook Connect will help make this a reality and allow you to use Facebook to share information from all over the web with your friends.


• Facebook Platform across the world: If you're a regular reader of this blog, you've probably read about the unique way we've translated Facebook-asking bilingual users to help us get into more languages more quickly. Now, your favorite applications can also access this framework so that everyone, everywhere, has a full suite of applications to choose from.


• Great Apps: After a year of many changes, we've decided to launch a program that promotes the applications that are meaningful, trustworthy, and well-designed. This means that we'll be promoting applications that help you share information and earn your trust. Our first two Great Apps are iLike and Causes, but be on the lookout for more to come.

Last year in May, we held a big developer conference, f8. As you may know, we used f8 to introduce Facebook Platform--a development system that enables developers to build applications on Facebook, where all of our 90 million users can interact with them.

Honestly, the fact that applications grew so quickly was a surprise--even to us. We've learned a lot in this last year, and with success also found a new set of problems that we needed to solve. This year at f8, we talked about a lot of our new solutions and how they all fit together. We'd like to share all of that with you, as well.

At Facebook, we want to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. With that in mind, here are some of the big announcements from f8 08:

• The new profile: You may already know about the new profile, and we hope you've already spent some time looking at the new Facebook. By surfacing more recent and relevant information, and by cleaning up and simplifying the site, we think the new Facebook makes it even easier to connect and communicate with your friends.


• Facebook Connect: Facebook Connect is a new way to use applications, on the open web and not just on Facebook. Soon, you'll be able to use your Facebook account to login and connect on websites throughout the web. Imagine never filling out another profile at a new site, or having to find your friends all over again. Facebook Connect will help make this a reality and allow you to use Facebook to share information from all over the web with your friends.


• Facebook Platform across the world: If you're a regular reader of this blog, you've probably read about the unique way we've translated Facebook-asking bilingual users to help us get into more languages more quickly. Now, your favorite applications can also access this framework so that everyone, everywhere, has a full suite of applications to choose from.


• Great Apps: After a year of many changes, we've decided to launch a program that promotes the applications that are meaningful, trustworthy, and well-designed. This means that we'll be promoting applications that help you share information and earn your trust. Our first two Great Apps are iLike and Causes, but be on the lookout for more to come.

Starting this morning, more and more users started seeing prompts on their home pages inviting them to switch over and try out the new Facebook. We're also really happy to say that anyone can try out the new site now by visiting http://www.new.facebook.com.

Over the past six months, 100,000 of you have offered to help improve the user experience on Facebook by giving your feedback and suggestions, and we're excited to show you what we've come up with. Here are some highlights:

The Wall now surfaces the most recent and relevant information--in the form of posts of stories--about you. We believe that having a constant stream of information, or "feed" is the most effective way to learn about and keep up with friends. Just as News Feed helps you know what is happening in your social circle, you can use the Wall as a way to give your friends the full story of what's happening with you.

A big piece of the Wall is the Publisher, which enables you to publish content--photos, notes, your status, and so on--directly to your Wall. The Publisher works with most applications so that you have one place to go to add content to your own profile or to a friends'.

The profile is very personal; it's important to us that everyone have control over their own profile. Along those lines, once you've published stories or posted content, you can adjust the size to promote the things you care about most, and demote the stories you don't find as interesting.

One of our key goals of this project has always been to make the site simpler and cleaner. The new tabbed profile should help a lot in this respect, breaking your information into tabs by type. The Wall tab displays most recent and relevant information both about you and by you. The Info tab shows information about you that doesn't change frequently. The Photos tab shows photos of you as well as your albums. The Boxes tab features all of your existing application boxes. You're also able to add tabs for your favorite applications.

Keep in mind, nothing with your privacy is changing with this; in fact, the new story formats should offer even greater control over what and how information is shared. We still respect all the same, trusted privacy controls as before. Thanks again for the feedback, and enjoy the new Facebook.



Mark is the Product Manager for the new profile.

Early this morning, a small group of people started seeing prompts on their home pages to switch over and try out the new Facebook. We're really happy to say that anyone can try out the new site now by visiting http://www.new.facebook.com . As you explore the site, you should note:

• A simplified top menu: we've moved the Applications menu from the left side of the page to the top menu, giving everyone a little more space to breathe. You can access all of the usual links through the menus for "Profile" "Friends" "Applications" and "Inbox". The Search box has moved to the right side of the top menu.


• Tabbed Profiles: The new profile keeps everything organized through tabs. The Wall tab features the most recent content by you and your friends. The Info tab features personal information like contact info and your interests. The Photos tab showcases photos of you and your albums, and the Boxes tab is home to all your application boxes. You can add new tabs to feature your favorite applications.


• The new Wall: The new Wall tab integrates the most recent content you've added, recent actions you've taken, and recent posts and comments from friends. You can enlarge, shrink, or remove posts entirely in order to feature your favorites.


• The Publisher Box: The Publisher box — at the top of your Wall tab — is a new central location for adding photos, notes, videos, application content, updating your status, and so on. Anything you add will immediately appear on your Wall.


• New Application Interactions: instead of needing to "add" an application, you now can "allow it access" and use it for a little while before deciding to add it to your profile, allow it to publish posts on your behalf, and so on.

Early this morning, a small group of people started seeing prompts on their home pages to switch over and try out the new Facebook. We're really happy to say that anyone can try out the new site now by visiting http://www.new.facebook.com . As you explore the site, you should note:

• A simplified top menu: we've moved the Applications menu from the left side of the page to the top menu, giving everyone a little more space to breathe. You can access all of the usual links through the menus for "Profile" "Friends" "Applications" and "Inbox". The Search box has moved to the right side of the top menu.


• Tabbed Profiles: The new profile keeps everything organized through tabs. The Wall tab features the most recent content by you and your friends. The Info tab features personal information like contact info and your interests. The Photos tab showcases photos of you and your albums, and the Boxes tab is home to all your application boxes. You can add new tabs to feature your favorite applications.


• The new Wall: The new Wall tab integrates the most recent content you've added, recent actions you've taken, and recent posts and comments from friends. You can enlarge, shrink, or remove posts entirely in order to feature your favorites.


• The Publisher Box: The Publisher box — at the top of your Wall tab — is a new central location for adding photos, notes, videos, application content, updating your status, and so on. Anything you add will immediately appear on your Wall.


• New Application Interactions: instead of needing to "add" an application, you now can "allow it access" and use it for a little while before deciding to add it to your profile, allow it to publish posts on your behalf, and so on.

Early this morning, a small group of people started seeing prompts on their home pages to switch over and try out the new Facebook. We're really happy to say that anyone can try out the new site now by visiting http://www.new.facebook.com . As you explore the site, you should note:

• A simplified top menu: we've moved the Applications menu from the left side of the page to the top menu, giving everyone a little more space to breathe. You can access all of the usual links through the menus for "Profile" "Friends" "Applications" and "Inbox". The Search box has moved to the right side of the top menu.


• Tabbed Profiles: The new profile keeps everything organized through tabs. The Wall tab features the most recent content by you and your friends. The Info tab features personal information like contact info and your interests. The Photos tab showcases photos of you and your albums, and the Boxes tab is home to all your application boxes. You can add new tabs to feature your favorite applications.


• The new Wall: The new Wall tab integrates the most recent content you've added, recent actions you've taken, and recent posts and comments from friends. You can enlarge, shrink, or remove posts entirely in order to feature your favorites.


• The Publisher Box: The Publisher box--at the top of your Wall tab--is a new central location for adding photos, notes, videos, application content, updating your status, and so on. Anything you add will immediately appear on your Wall.


• New Application Interactions: instead of needing to "add" an application, you now can "allow it access" and use it for a little while before deciding to add it to your profile, allow it to publish posts on your behalf, and so on.

Last August we launched our Facebook iPhone website, and almost a year later it has over 1.5 million people using it regularly. We are thrilled to see so many enjoying Facebook on their iPhones, so we've been working on ways to take our iPhone experience to the next level. Today, Apple has opened the doors to its App Store which features a new application we've created: Facebook for iPhone.

You're probably wondering what makes our iPhone application different from our iPhone website. The bottom line is that applications built for the iPhone have access to more technology than websites. For example, with the native application you can take photos with the iPhone's camera and upload them instantly to your Mobile Uploads album on Facebook. You'll also find the native application is much faster than the website, giving you more reliable access to your Friends, Photos, and Inbox.

Facebook for iPhone also brings one important new feature to the iPhone - Facebook Chat. Wherever you are, you'll be able to see which of your Facebook friends are online and chat with them for free.

The first version of Facebook for iPhone is just a glimpse of the future. For instance, the iPhone has the ability to find where you are located, and we are looking for ways to let you opt-in to share your location and discover nearby friends. We're developing this and several other exciting new features that we'll release in the coming months.

Facebook for iPhone works with the original iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPhone 3G. You can download the application for free from Apple's App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/

Joe, a Facebook engineer, built Facebook for iPhone.

As Facebook grows in other languages, we are learning a lot about what the "Facebook Experience" is like for people around the world. One of the first challenges was getting words that are really long in other languages to fit on the screen properly. Recently, we've been figuring out how to deal with a new challenge--grammar.

Ever see a story about a friend who tagged "themself" in a photo? "Themself" isn't even a real word. We've used that in place of "himself or herself". We made that grammatical choice in order to respect people who haven't, until now, selected their sex on their profile.

However, we've gotten feedback from translators and users in other countries that translations wind up being too confusing when people have not specified a sex on their profiles. People who haven't selected what sex they are frequently get defaulted to the wrong sex entirely in Mini-Feed stories.

For this reason, we've decided to request that all Facebook users fill out this information on their profile. If you haven't yet selected a sex, you will probably see a prompt to choose whether you want to be referred to as "him" or "her" in the coming weeks. When you make a selection, that will appear in Mini-Feed and News Feed stories about you, but it won't be searchable or displayed in your Basic Information.

We've received pushback in the past from groups that find the male/female distinction too limiting. We have a lot of respect for these communities, which is why it will still be possible to remove gender entirely from your account, including how we refer to you in Mini-Feed.

We hope this change will make the Facebook experience even better across the world. Let us know if you have any thoughts about this on our suggestions page.



Naomi is a Product Manager at Facebook.