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Facebook is blocked at some places which is unfortunate, because some like to use it for personal productivity and knowledge sharing.

Accessing it on a PC with a mobile browser like Mowser, gets you to the homepage, but the login fails as it asks for cookies to be enabled. Reason for this is explained here…basically it’s not meant to be used as an anonymizer or proxy bypasser.

I’m not savvy with purpose based proxy bypasses or whatever they are called, but this seems too sneaky.

Work Around

So how do I found out what’s going on in Facebook without always having to visit the site?

You can get email notifications for any interaction on all of your modules (widgets), but it only does that, notify, it doesn’t include the content.

Another way I can get updated with what’s is going on in mine and my friends world is RSS feeds of course, and if you don’t use an RSS Reader convert it to email or anything else.

These are the modules with RSS feeds:

NOTES
- good for friends to keep up with your Notes
- but the “Notes about Me” doesn’t have an RSS feed so I can’t keep up with who has noted me other than by email notification or going to Facebook to have a look
- there is also an RSS feed to keep up with all of your friends Notes, so you could pick up “Notes about Me” in this feed I guess
- lacks a comments RSS feed for Notes…so I can be updated and read who has left comments on my Notes

POSTED ITEMS
- good for friends to keep up with your Posted Items
- there is also an RSS feed to keep up with all of your friends Posted Items
- lacks a comments RSS feed for Posted Items…so I can be updated and read who has left comments on my Posted Items

PHOTOS
- I can’t grab an RSS feed for my friends latest photos, or if I have been tagged in a photo
- lacks a comments RSS feed for Photos

WALL
- lacks an RSS feed to see who has posted on your wall
- lacks a comments (replies) RSS feed for your wall

STATUS
- there is an RSS feed for your friends status
- unlike Twitter it doesn’t have an archive

What you can do on your mobile phone

MOBILE WEB (this doesn’t qualify for this post as you are actually going to the Facebook website)
- m.facebook.com is a mobile web version, so you can do everything

MOBILE UPLOAD
- upload Photos and Notes by email, unlike Gubb you can’t get a return email for your current Notes…this would be good if you use Notes as a To-Do list.

MOBILE TEXTS
- upload your status by SMS, see the list for more:

Get Profile Info John Smith
Get Cell c or cell John Smith
Update your status @ or i am sleeping
Add a friend a or add John Smith
Poke! p or poke John Smith
Fire f or fire John Smith
Message m or msg John Smith whats up?
Wall post w or wall John Smith happy bday
Get status stat or status John Smith or ‘friends’
Subscribe to status sub or listen John Smith
Unsubscribe from status unsub or ignore John Smith
Get next results n or next
Get help help
Facebook texts on or off

News feed

The Mini Feed documents all the things you do on Facebook, and now you can let others in on your Mini Feed. Your homepage (not your profile) has a module called News Feed, on the sidebar it lists friends requests and yours and your friends status updates, in the middle is a mixed stream of all your friends Mini Feed.

This is great, you can see what’s going on in your Facebook world in one view:
- it lacks an archive
- it lacks limiting the view to a content type like the Mini Feed
- it’s not an RSS Reader, so you can’t mark the page or a date “as read”
- it lacks a feed, how can it be called News Feed when it doesn’t have an RSS feed.

NOTE: you can set preferences with scale sliders on your News Feed…if you don’t care about who has added Photos, slide it to “show less”, if you care about Notes, slide it to “show more”.
You can even list 20 friends that take priority in your News Feed, and pick 20 Friends you prefer not to see in your News Feed.

Focus of this post

1. If the News Feed had an RSS feed I could keep up with most of what my friends are doing in one stream

2. I’d like to see a “what’s happening to me” all in one feed, covering comments on my:
Notes, Photos, Wall and Posted Items

3. Posting and getting updates by SMS and email is a way around not having to go to the Facebook website.

Related
Facebook : a social network startpage or digital dashboard
Google could be Facebook…and more on networks and communities

[ADDED 12/06/07: Facebook and walled gardens]

[ADDED 14/06/07: Facebook : notifications and posting]

[ADDED 08/09/07: Facebook interactions and notifications]