Blogging "Lite"

For many people, Facebook has replaced blogging. My friend and former colleague Kyle Margenau is a case in point. Kyle began blogging before me, when he and his wife were expecting their first child. "We used Blogger for a long time; now we use WordPress. I don't do a lot of blogging anymore; it is mostly [my wife] doing it. I spend most of my time in Facebook now." For people like Kyle, Facebook -- or blogging "lite," as I refer to it -- is an adequate solution for sharing status updates (also known as microblogging) with family and friends, including photos and short video clips.

Facebook Mobile apps are available for many types of smartphones. The Facebook app for the Apple iPhone is a handy tool that offers a rich set of features and is easy to use, ideal for quick-and-dirty mobile blogging. After you login, the News Feed screen appears by default. Post status updates on the News Feed screen by typing in the text field labeled, "What's on your mind?" Upload a photo with a caption by tapping the camera icon. Tap the icon that looks like a 3x3 grid of nine squares (shown upper-left corner) for a menu of available options.

The Facebook "Web app" for mobile devices offers many of the same features as the Facebook app for iPhone, but its user interface is more generic and less intuitive. Neither app is as robust as full Facebook site access via a Web browser on a personal computer.

Editor's Note: Facebook has attracted a lot of negative publicity recently related to the privacy rights of Facebook users. If you decide to sign up for Facebook, then I strongly recommend you follow my advice regarding the course of least regret: Assume everything you post on Facebook is public and nothing is truly "private."