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O'Reilly is on point again with this latest addition to The Missing Manual series.

Facebook was started as a collegiate networking site that opened its doors to everyone in September 2006. My experience with social networking
platforms dates back to Friendster.com and the more popular Myspace.com, and I was excited to join Facebook, and did so quickly.
I'm a 'once-a-day' visitor of Myspace.com, and have become quite familiar with how that network grows, and how to hack profile settings to
customize my experience there. On joining Facebook, I was in less familiar territory, and I was looking to understand the way in which this new site works.
Facebook: The Missing Manual does a nice job explaining to new and experienced users how the site is structured and how to get the most out of Facebook's functionality.

The first four chapters of the book illustrate what I view as basic information about joining the site, finding your online friends, sending messages and joining networks.
This is very useful for the first-time user, but if you are already on the site, I would recommend skimming this section for some of the important safety tips inline with the text.

The next sections of this Missing Manual is where it starts to get interesting to me as a user and as someone interested in promotion and sharing information online.
Step by step, you are shown how to join groups that you are personally interested in, create groups and also how to create individual events that you may choose to invite your friends too. Whether it is a party, a concert, or a pick-up softball game, Facebook makes it easy to invite your friends to the event. Your friends will then be able to R.S.V.P. with ease, and you will easily be able to count out the right number of spoons and bowls for your annual roof deck ice-cream social.

Also explained in these chapters is the Facebook Marketplace' application. This is a way to use Facebook as an alternative to sites such as craigslist.org. I have mixed feelings about the use of this feature, as I personally don't find myself placing ads here, but on the other hand, offering your friends first dibs on a free couch might feel better than giving the couch to a stranger. Again, use of the application is up to you, but if you had any questions about the steps you may need to take, this book is a handy reference. You might also consider placing an ad of looking for employment on the Marketplace application. Facebook makes it easy to put your work experience right on your profile.

On a side-note related to job seekers and job posters out there in the cloud, the book warns that you may wish to be careful what information is on your profile and what pictures you or your friends have posted. We are in a world where your Facebook page is very likely to be under scrutiny by employers after you apply for a job, or by a potential employee. Facebook: The Missing Manual warns that you might want to review your content to ensure it is PG-rated.

When I first joined the site, I found one feature very confusing, and I was so skeptical of it that it took me a while to trust it. Now, after some time, I understand this feature and have gone so far as to delve right in to developing for it. The feature I am referring to is 'Applications.' Facebook made another smart move by opening its doors to programmers and developers, whom were able to create small programs to the site. Facebook developers are making custom applications to promote brands and services, but also, most of the applications are for fun! Scrabulous is a popular application for playing Scrabble online against your friends, there are countless other games to choose from, and the community of developers are only constrained by their imagination to come up with new uses of Facebook daily. Facebook allows the user to decide what information the application makers have access too, so I would caution users of the site to carefully read the warnings that you are prompted with when agreeing to add the application.
Facebook: The Missing Manual has, throughout the book, warnings about privacy and protecting your information. This topic is directly related to the application feature, and is covered much in the chapter related to the feature.

This well-written book is a must-have for parents curious about the safety features of Facebook, for beginning to intermediate users of the site, and also for people who may wish to use the site as the representative of a business or group. Facebook has many unique features, such as 'poking', and you will find terms and good practices illustrated in this book with clear screen-shots and clever, oft-times funny text to use as a reference to getting the most out of this popular social networking website that has caught on rather quickly and is developing more features each day.

Realistically, I can imagine that the next print edition of the book may need to be updated, as this is the nature of writing on the social networking online experience.