Facebook has just reached the boundary of preadolescence and adolescence by age — but it seems to have been a part of our life since ages. It has ingrained itself in our lives so well that despite of hectic schedules it finds its way in our daily routine. It happens with all of us… we log in to Facebook just for five minutes and find the clock staring at us telling “you have already spent more than fifty minutes scrolling Facebook”. Why the clock starts running so fast whenever we log in to our Facebook account? Facebook has so many great features that it engrosses us completely. Many of these Facebook features are lesser known (aka “secret”) and also Facebook keeps on launching new features.
Despite spending lots of time on the site there are many Facebook features that are known to few people. Some of the very useful ones are:
- You can turn off chat while being online
- Share posts only with specific friends
- Starting a group chat
- Restricting friend requests
- Hiding your friend list, and
- Hiding activities from public
- Scheduling posts and saving them for later use
But these Facebook features are now the old school things. In this article, you are going to read some really fun stuff and fascinating features of Facebook. Log into your Facebook in a new tab of your browser and get ready to test these interesting features!
Facebook Feature: Personalize chat for individual contacts
All those people in our Facebook chat list are not of equal importance. So why keep everything same for everybody? Facebook has a bunch of really interesting features to personalize chat experiences for each individual in your list.
Click on the message symbol at the top of the page -> See all in messenger
Now you are on the page with your chat list on the left hand side, a conversation in the mid-page and some options on the right hand side bar. Open conversation of the individual you want to personalize. Here you have 3 interesting options.
Change Nickname – By clicking on this option you can replace your own and your contact’s name to a nickname of your choice. The nickname you assign is only visible to both of you (or group members if it’s a group chat). When we keep calling the old school buddies with their fun names in real life why not do it on Facebook? Who wouldn’t like to receive messages from their someone special with the special name given by them? The fun fact here is that your shona baby too can see that you have saved this nickname for him/her. Forget the official names on Facebook and save the pet name to have that special feeling of closeness without the fear of it being public.
Change Color – Are you a lover of colors? Does the monotonous blue color of Facebook makes you feel bored? Then this feature is certainly for you. You can choose different colors for Facebook conversation with different people. This change too is visible to both the person involved in the conversation. She loves green? Go green for her… change the color of your conversation and tell her that you remember her favorite color. Use different colors for different people and make your Facebook experience more colorful.
Change Emoji – Thumbs up is the default emoji that we can use, while chatting, with a single click. But definitely this is not the emoji that we frequently want to use in conversation with everybody. For some conversation we want that emoji with its tongue sticking out, for some that purple devil with horns, maybe a red heart for the one and a simple smiling emoji for many in our chat list. This option let’s you replace the thumbs up with emoji of your own choice. Remember, when you change emoji for a particular conversation it will automatically change for that person too.
Literally these option let you handle a fraction of someone else’s Facebook account without having access to their id or password.
Facebook Feature: Play online games with your contacts in the messenger itself
Facebook has kept this feature hidden under the veil for some unknown reasons. Playing online games is a nice idea not only for relaxing the mind but also to feel connected with someone despite having miles of distance. You can challenge your friend to beat you in football or soccer. For this you need to send the football or soccer emoji in a conversation and then click on it. You can play these interesting games only when you have an updated version of Facebook.
How to play Facebook chess?
You have also the option of playing chess! But just like the real chess, playing it in messenger is not a child’s play. You cannot play Facebook chess graphically… you’ll have to play it with keyboard.
To start a Facebook chess game type @fbchess play and send it to the person you want to play the game with. A digital chess board will appear in your chat box. To move pieces you’ll need to type @fbchess followed by the initials of the piece in capital letter and then the box number to which you want to move that particular piece. K stands for King, Q for Queen, B for Bishop; N should be typed for Knight, R for Rook and P for Pawn.
Suppose you want to move your pawn to box a3 then you’ll need to type @fbchess Pa3.
Facebook Feature: Send money through Facebook messenger
You already know that you can share picture, video, audio and documents too. But, do you know that you can also send and receive money via your Facebook messenger? This new feature of Facebook allows you to send money just by clicking the dollar sign in your chat window. For availing this new feature in the updated version of Facebook you first need to save your credit card details that you want to use for the transactions.
Settings -> Payments -> Add payment method
After saving your card details; you will have to wait for approval. Once approved, you can send and receive money through Facebook messenger with one click.
Facebook Feature: Choose what you want to do with your Facebook account when you are no more in this world
Facebook gives you the opportunity to choose what’s to be done with your Facebook account once you are gone from this world. You can choose to delete your Facebook account after your demise or you can also ask to keep it as your legacy. If you want your Facebook account to live even after your death you will have to pass this legacy to any of your Facebook contact. Take the following steps:
Settings -> Security -> Legacy contact -> Add name of your contact whom you want to pass your legacy
After assigning a Facebook contact as your legacy contact you have the option to send a message to inform him/her. Don’t worry about privacy as your legacy contact is not going to have access to your account right now. Even after your death they would not be able to have access to your message box. They will only be allowed to pin status to your wall and accept new friend requests. But, you can also choose to give them the right to download a copy of your Facebook activities (except for personal messages).
Special Facebook Features for Login
- Turn on profile picture log in – By turning on the profile picture log in in your settings you can log in just by clicking on your picture and filling your password. You no more need your id or phone number to log in to your account if you are using a recognized device and browser for accessing Facebook.
- Gain access to your account with friend’s help whenever in trouble – It happens many times that we lose access to our own Facebook account for various reasons. In the security section of settings you can choose 3-5 trusted people in your Facebook profile. Whenever you lose access to your profile, you can call these people and ask for the code sent to them by Facebook and regain access to your Facebook account.
A few miscellaneous Facebook features
- Make your Facebook visits more interesting by turning everything upside down. It is a very interesting feature for a fun loving person who is always looking for something new in life.Settings -> Language -> English (upside down).
- Re-visit your Facebook love life whenever you want. Persons in love are never bored of their own love story. This feature of Facebook is meant for those love-birds who flaunt their love chemistry publicly. facebook.com/us is the link that will take you to the tour of page containing everything you and your partner has done together on Facebook. Remember that you must have your partner tagged as being in a relationship or this link will take you to your own profile.
- View all your Facebook activities at a glance. You can see all your posts, likes, comments and shares at one single page. For this you need to visit Profile -> Activity log.
- Set your favorite person and groups as your preference to get news feed first. Facebook allows you to add up to 30 names in your priority list. Go to News feed -> Edit preference -> Prioritize to see first
Do you know about some more interesting and hidden Facebook features? Which one of the above seem more interesting to you? Do share your views with us.
Should you have any question on this topic, please feel free to ask in the comments section. We, at TechWelkin and our reader community will try to assist you. Thank you for using TechWelkin!
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