Facebook today announced a number of changes to improve the usability of its privacy controls, including a redesigned activity log, a two-step app permissions process, a new request and removal tool for photos, and more user education throughout the site.

The social network has long offered some of the most robust privacy controls on the web, but because of this comprehensiveness, it struggles with presenting all the options in a clear, easy-to-use way. The changes announced today are Facebook’s most prominent efforts at simplifying its system and giving users more control over what they share since it overhauled privacy settings and introduced the activity log last year.

The latest changes appear to be an improvement with more straightforward language, fewer options hidden beneath menus, a faster way to untag multiple photos and an app authorization process that first asks users if an app can access a user’s information and then asks if it can post to Timeline.

Of course, any time Facebook makes any visual or functional changes, users have to adjust. The frequency with which the social network reorganizes features and introduces new ones is a source of frustration for many people. Another upcoming change that some users will dislike is the phase out of the “Who can look up my timeline by name?” setting. Facebook will soon make it so that users can not hide themselves from Facebook search. The company points out that the setting was limited in that users can be found a number of other ways on the site. It has removed the setting for users who were not using it, and will gradually remove it for the “small percentage” of users who are.

We’ll go into the changes in more depth below. Facebook says these updates will roll out over the next few weeks.
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Facebook today unveiled a redesign of “friendship pages” that show two users’ history on the social network in Timeline format.

Friendship pages display users’ mutual friends, Likes, photos and interactions on Facebook. With the new Timeline layout, these pages are now easier to navigate and match the latest design of other pages and profiles. The update also gives users more options to customize the pages and a more complete look at shared activity between two friends.

Friendship pages now feature a cover photo. By default, Facebook will select an image in which both users are tagged and that has received some Likes and comments from friends. Whereas previously users could not change their default image, either friend can now add a new photo to the top. There’s a new option at the bottom of the page to fill in details about when, where and how two friends met. Users can also click the star icon on certain stories to highlight them, as they would on their own profile. There is another option to hide stories from a friendship page. These features help make the pages feel more personal than the previous version users couldn’t control in any way.

Another upgrade is that friendship pages now feature all stories between friends, including life events, check-ins and Open Graph app activity. Previously, the pages showed wall posts and @ mentions, but not stories about users being at the same place or taking an Open Graph action together.

It’s important to note that although anyone can see two other users’ friendship pages, the privacy setting of posts and activity persist, so no one will be able to see anything they wouldn’t otherwise be able to see on an individual profile. Users should keep in mind that hiding a story from their own Timeline without deleting it means it is still eligible to appear on a friendship page since it may still be visible on the friend’s Timeline.

Friendship pages first debuted in October 2010, after beginning as a Hackathon project. Users can navigate to friendship pages by visiting a friend’s profile and clicking the gears icon and then “See friendship.” From News Feed, users can hover over a friend’s name and click “See friendship” from the hovercard that appears. Once a user is on a friendship page, they can click the “More” button and type in the name of any two friends.

Users who are in a relationship can quickly see their friendship page here.

Facebook is testing a new format for user Timelines, which puts all posts in a single column on the left and any activity modules in a narrower column on the right.

This layout addresses one of the common complaints about the new profile: users previously had to look back and forth on the page as they scrolled through to read their stream. Some users found the two-column layout frustrating. With this design, the line down the center has been removed, making the profile look less like a timeline. However, the timeline of dates still exists in the top right of the page to jump to a particular month or year.

In this test, the publisher and all posts beneath it have gotten wider. Modules like “Recent Activity,” “Friends,” “Places” and those for any Open Graph apps are all to the right, similar to how they are on the original Timeline. The difference in this design is that these modules are no longer the same size as posts, and when there are no more modules to show, the Timeline appears blank rather than filling in with status updates or wall posts.

[Update: Another difference is that life events and other highlighted posts don't stretch across the page when they are starred. In the orignal Timeline design, when a user highlights a post, it appears larger than others. Now, posts simply get a blue banner in the corner but otherwise remain the same size as standard posts. Although this design isn't currently being tested on brand pages, this could be something that eventually affects them.]

Facebook confirmed that it is testing this design with a small percentage of users but did not offer any additional information.

Chinese social network Renren is rolling out a new profile that clearly copies the design and features of Facebook Timeline.

Since launching in 2005, Renren has always maintained a close look and feel to Facebook, from News Feed to profiles to mobile. The company also followed Facebook’s path from being only for students to available for everyone, as well as opening its platform to third-party developers. With Timeline, it seems that the similarities are more than surface level. Facebook UI engineer Stefan Parker, who worked on Timeline, said in a public comment on his profile, “It’s done exactly the same, floats, capsule balancing, everything. Even runs into scrolling perf issues when you load enough in and scroll while it balances.”

Facebook is currently blocked in China, and last week Facebook’s North Asia Director Jayne Leung told conference attendees in Hong Kong that the social network has no plans to expand into the country. In the meantime, Renren is continuing to grow, though its engagement numbers are not as strong as Facebook’s. Renren reported 45 million monthly active users in Q2, which is only 27 percent of its 162 million total activated users.

Renren’s timeline design began rolling out last month, though it is still in beta and not available to all users. As seen in photos from a promotional page about the new product, the social network has copied Facebook features such as cover photo and life events. Renren also created a Pinterest clone this year.

Interestingly, another Chinese social network L99.com was recently reported to be considering a suit against Facebook for infringing on its own timeline design apparently launched in 2008. L99.com CEO Xiong Wanli claims to have video evidence that Mark Zuckerberg attended a lecture he gave at Stanford where he unveiled the timeline layout.

Facebook stock picks up slightly after all-time low – Facebook shares closed at $21.09 today, up slightly from their all-time low earlier this week of $19.82. The stock has taken a beating since its second quarter earnings report and it was hit further with reports about false user accounts and executives leaving the company. Fidelity and other investment companies have reportedly sold off significant numbers of their Facebook shares, surprising some analysts who say it is uncommon for mutual funds to flip shares so quickly. The social network is now valued at nearly $58 billion, down from $104 billion valuation at the time of its IPO in May.

Judge not ready to approve Sponsored Stories settlement – A San Francisco federal judge declined to approve Facebook’s $10-million settlement regarding its Sponsored Stories ads, suggesting the payout was not fully explained and might need to be higher. The settlement allots $10 million to the lawyers who sued the company and another $10 million to charity, as well as promises to give users more control over how their names and images are used along with ads. The judge has asked for more explanation about why the parties came up with the figure.

All users to be converted to Timeline soon – Facebook says it will automatically convert all user profiles to Timeline format over the next few months, bringing consistency to the user experience but perhaps frustrating some of the remaining users who haven’t wanted to switch. The social network has had a surprisingly slow rollout for Timeline, which was announced in September 2011, and publicly released that December. In the past, Facebook has converted all profiles to a new layout within weeks.

Facebook shares carbon footprint of data centers and global offices- Facebook says its total annual carbon footprint per monthly active user in 2011 was 269 grams. The company says this per user footprint is the equivalent of one medium latte or three large bananas. Facebook’s total energy use from office space, data centers and other facilities was approximately 532 million kWh. Its energy mix was 23 percent clean and renewable, 27% percent coal, 17 percent natural gas, 13 percent nuclear and 20 percent uncategorized. “Facebook has committed to being fully renewably powered, and today’s detailed disclosure and announcement of a clean energy target shows that the company means business and wants the world to follow its progress,” Greenpeace International Senior IT Analyst Gary Cook said.

Facebook Login use continues to grow – Facebook accounts for 48 percent of all social logins, according to Janrain’s latest quarterly report. That figure is up from 45 percent in Q1, and represents eight straight quarters that Facebook’s share has risen. Google remains second at 30 percent, which has been relatively static for the past six quarters. On mobile applications, Janrain credits Facebook with 52 percent share, compared to 27 percent for Google, 13 percent for Twitter and 7 percent for Yahoo.

Bing introduces friend-tagging from search - Bing expanded its social sidebar functionality this week to allow users to enter a question or comment and tag up to five friends on Facebook. The shared search will appear in News Feed and on the user’s and tagged friends’ Timelines.

Facebook relaunches Stories - Facebook this week launched FacebookStories.com, an updated version of the Stories app it released in June 2010 when the social network reached 500 million monthly active users. The site features videos and other stories about people who use Facebook in unique and extraordinary ways.

Facebook recently added an activity log feature to some mobile devices, allowing users to see all their recent activity, verify their privacy settings and delete individual stories.

Activity log was a key new feature that came with the introduction of Timeline, but was not translated to mobile until recently. Facebook did not tell us when it made the change or how widely it is available, but we expect it to eventually be available for all users because it is an important tool for users to manage their activity while they are away from a computer. With more mobile apps integrating Open Graph and publishing stories to News Feed and Timeline, it is increasingly necessary for users to be able to control what gets posted on their behalf. So far we’ve seen the activity log in Facebook’s mobile site and iOS app, but we did not have the option in the Android app, however, some users get access to features at different times.

The activity log is accessible from a user’s mobile Timeline. Beneath the cover photo is a row of tabs, including “About,” “Photos” and “Friends.” Swiping to the left across these tabs reveals more tabs, including one labeled “Activity Log.” The feature is also presented when users visit “Timeline Review” after a friend tags them in a photo or checks them into a location.

From the mobile activity log, users can see the privacy setting associated with each action they took on the social network or with a Facebook-connected app. On desktop, users can change their privacy settings from activity log, but this does not seem to be the case with the mobile version. Instead, Facebook simply gives users the option to delete a story completely by clicking the circle next to the story. This seems to be a way to balance offering necessary control while maintaining a more lightweight experience on mobile devices.

Facebook has started to bring the Timeline design for pages to its mobile versions this week, more than four months since it introduced the new layout for desktop.

We haven’t seen Timeline for pages on our own devices, but a reader in Australia sent us the screenshot to the right. The design now includes a page’s cover photo, more information from the About section, and new icons to view a page’s photos and details about its fan base. In the iPhone app, pages also feature a larger Like button, spanning across the width of the screen. On the mobile web, some pages have a smaller Like button because the page also includes the Message button, which hasn’t been brought to the native app yet.

Timeline for personal profiles rolled out on mobile at about the same it launched on desktop, but the design for pages has taken much more time. These changes make the Facebook experience more consistent and could help improve conversions for mobile Sponsored Stories. Last month, ad optimization company AdParlor told us that the conversion rate of users who click a mobile Sponsored Story and then Like a page was lower than the average for desktop ads — 55 percent versus 72 percent. We suggested this might improve when Facebook updates its mobile site and apps to show pages in the Timeline format.

The addition of a cover photo and page description give users a clearer idea what the page is about and the larger Like button is a better call to action, though we might see Facebook experiment with where to place the button. Currently it gets a little lost under the About section and some users might be confused by the “Likes” tab, which also features the thumbs-up, but doesn’t allow a user to connect with the page by clicking it.

Cover photos do not appear as tall as they do for personal Timelines on mobile so as to leave room for more information below and to maintain a similar aspect ratio to what cover photos use on desktop. Pages should be aware, however, that the cover photo and profile photo are not aligned the same way as on desktop, so designs that integrate the profile image into the cover art will not appear as intended on mobile.

We haven’t heard back from Facebook about how widely today’s update has been released. Social media agency Jam wrote about the upcoming change to mobile pages on its blog on Monday, but when we asked Facebook about the news on Tuesday, a spokesperson provided the following statement, “We aren’t making any changes to mobile pages today, but we’re dedicated to making the experience on mobile consistent with that on desktop soon.”

For reference, here is what mobile pages look like without the Timeline design.

Thanks to Andrew Swan for the tip and screenshot of the new mobile pages.

Facebook today announced the launch of a new weddings and celebrations feature to make it easier for users to see important events in their friends’ lives and share their congratulations.

When someone changes their Facebook status to engaged or married, it will display to all of their friends in the sidebar next to News Feed. Users can check for birthdays, events, engagements and marriages at the same time. They can then click on the engagement or marriage announcement to write a congratulatory post on the couple’s Timeline. If a user is not already friends with both partners, they can add the other person without being directed to another page. The main benefit to the new feature is that a friend’s big announcement doesn’t get buried in News Feed.

On Wednesday, Facebook updated its event dashboard to include a calendar view for users to see all of their events and friends’ upcoming birthdays. Facebook told TechCrunch that they were holding off adding weddings and celebrations to the calendar. The engagement and wedding announcements are currently limited to the homepage.

The social network often tests new ways to promote activity and help users connect more easily. In 2010, the company introduced a News Feed story for when multiple friends write on a friend’s Wall for their birthday. This helped users remember to send birthday messages to their friends. Last year, Facebook made this even easier with a way for users to write Happy Birthday on a friend’s wall without leaving the homepage.

Also last year, Facebook tested a feature called Big Events, which would update users on a big event happening in their friends’ lives. The module would appear on different pages across the site, not just News Feed, and it prompted users to use Facebook messages rather than Wall posts.

In the future, we might see Facebook expand the weddings and celebrations feature to include when users have a new baby or indicate another important life event on their Timeline.

Some artists’ Facebook pages now include an option for fans to search for and share Spotify links to their favorite songs, as well as a way for users to see which songs, videos and news stories related to an artist are trending on the social network.

When users visit an artist’s page, they can click “music” from the publisher and search for a song by that artist. A link to Spotify will appear and users can say something about the link before posting it publicly to the page. This seems aimed at helping fans express themselves to their favorite artists, as many users often post links to YouTube videos of an artist’s songs to show their support. The new feature makes it easier for users to reference a particular song, while encouraging use of Spotify over YouTube. Ultimately, the feature could search across Vevo and other Facebook-connected services besides Spotify.

For now this option is available on pages that are linked with a Spotify artist and that allow fans to post on the page. For example, pages for Rihanna and Eminem do not allow fans to write on their Wall so there is no option to share music either. Some users have also seen the music feature above News Feed, allowing them to easily share songs with friends.

Another feature we recently noticed on artist pages is a module that includes the number of total Spotify plays for five of an artist’s most popular songs. When users first visit an artist page, they will see which songs are popular among their friends, but when filtering Timeline by “posts by others,” they will see total plays among all users.

In that same “posts by others” view are modules showing the top videos and top articles about an artist. This information is pulled from Open Graph-enabled apps like Vevo, Viddy, Yahoo and Washington Post Social Reader. These modules are interesting for people who visit the page, but they could also be useful for artists to understand which channels their fans — or potential fans — are most active on.

[Update 7/10/12 2:50 p.m. PT - These video and news modules are also available on fan pages for brands, public figures and other entities on Facebook.]

[Update 7/10/12 4:49 p.m. PT - Facebook engineer Alejandro Marcu, who works on pages, tells us these modules were added to pages on June. 15.]

Facebook pages are becoming increasingly rich destinations for artists to connect with fans and for users to discover new music. In April, Facebook added a listen button to artist pages, allowing users to get an instant sample of an artist’s music. With Timeline, artists can tell their story dating back before Facebook, making these pages useful for sharing an artist’s discography and important biographical events. Facebook pages could be an even stronger hub for artists if they also included modules about popular shows or concerts featuring that artist. This module could pull information from Facebook events, Ticketmaster, StubHub and other ticketing services that integrate Open Graph. Users should be able to see which shows their friends had been to, as well as which events were most popular overall.

Facebook and Yahoo have resolved their patent disputes out of court, agreeing to cross-license their patent portfolios and begin a new advertising partnership, according to a press release. All Things D, which broke the news this morning, says the settlement does not involve any payment between the companies. Facebook will license a little more than half of Yahoo’s digital patent portfolio and agree not to sue on the remaining ones, which Facebook can license or buy in the future. The companies will partner on “premium media experiences promoted and distributed across both Yahoo and Facebook,” the press release says. All Things D reports that Yahoo will be the first partner able to show users’ Likes in its display advertising.

Facebook stock up slightly this week - Facebook shares closed at $31.73 today, up 2 percent this week. The stock traded as low as $30.55 on Monday, but was back up today with news that the company ended its legal battle with Yahoo and formed a strategic partnership with the company.

Facebook could launch job board – Facebook may be planning to launch its own job board later this summer, according to Wall Street Journal sources. The job board would aggregate the job postings of third-party providers, making them available for search by Facebook users, according to the report. Facebook did not comment on the rumors. The social network announced a partnership in October with the U.S. Labor Department and other partners to provide job-hunting resources. At the time, Facebook said that the “partnership will explore and develop systems where new job postings can be delivered virally through the Facebook site at no charge.” This rumored job board could be part of that effort.

Facebook recognizes gay married couples with new icons - Facebook has created new same-sex marriage icons to provide recognition for users who are married to a person of the same sex. Users who have indicated on Timeline that they are married will now display the new same-sex marriage icons, rather than the marriage icon used for straight married couples.

Facebook invests in underwater Internet cable – Facebook has invested in the Asia Pacific Gateway, a 6,214-mile undersea cable designed to improve Internet speeds for citizens and businesses in the region, the BBC reports. The fiber-optic cable will run directly from Malaysia to South Korea and Japan, with links branching off to other countries.

Facebook launches App Center in U.K. - Facebook continues to roll out its App Center, this week bringing the new mobile and desktop experience to users in the United Kingdom, according to Journalism.co.uk.