As of today, Facebook has made its newest theme-change official. This is the most aggressive theme change yet, with a complete reorganization and a yet-again minimalist-ization (that is definitely not a word) to the profile pages.

To check it out for yourself, just visit www.new.facebook.com.

As with all Facebook updates, there’s going to be a lot of backlash. Facebook has learned from their previous roll-outs and are now giving people the option to “opt-in” to the new layout. Kudos to them.

Read on to your heart’s content »

If you’re a student, money is probably tight. If it’s not, your parents spoil you. Regardless of how many digits are in your bank account, Mint.com will probably help teach us a thing or two about the ever-increasingly complex finance system.

Fresh Off the Press

From the get-go, Mint.com leaves a fresh tingly feeling on your fingertips. It’s got the slick interface down to a T.

First up, you add one of your bank accounts or credit cards to your Mint.com account. Then watch the magic happen. If you’re bank logs your check card transactions and you’re always throwing down the plastic when it comes time to pay (like me), Mint will parse out each transaction and can instantly identify some of your spending habits.

I’d love to show you some screenshots of me using it, but it might get a little too personal. I can tell you right now that half of what I make in a month goes towards rent and about a quarter goes towards food. Mint figured that out right after I got my accounts in sync.

Do I Know What’s Best for Me?

While we’ve written in the past about the magic of high-yield savings accounts, there’s a lot more specialized accounts and credit cards that could be saving you money. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a service that already knew if you were getting competitive rates?

Because Mint.com knows each of your accounts, it lets you know if you don’t have the best account available. Awesome.

You can also see how your spending habits in certain areas measure up to the averages in your city. For the most part, I’m assuming most students will be well below the average.

Security? Oh Yeah.

Now, one service that plugs in to all of your bank accounts seems shady. What if one person got a hold of your Mint.com account. Wouldn’t they have access to all of your bank account information?

Mint is as safe as can be. It’s a read-only banking service that does not save your login credentials. After you establish a link to an account, Mint forgets your passwords.

If someone manages to log in to your Mint account, they are only privy to how poor you actually are.

Special thanks to Garrett Shannon for recommending Mint.com to us!

If your phone is ever stolen or lost or wet or broken or misplaced, please don’t create a Facebook Group about it. Get with Zyb, article here, or visit Facebook’s own Phonebook.

You’ll get a list of all your Friends, complete with their Landline and/or Mobile numbers (should they list them on their Profile). Awesome and easy.

Facebook Phonebook: http://www.facebook.com/mobile/?phonebook

I woke up this morning to see a sponsored something-or-other populating my News Feed. And then I realized how cool and topical it was. Whether us Americans like it or not, election season is in full swing even though the election itself is 10 months away. Facebook is promoting a Presidential debate to be held this Saturday (1/5/2008) at 7pm EST. Alright, that’s pretty cool. And then I clicked on the corresponding “US Politics” Application. What I found was a plethora of graphs, charts, and easy ways to participate and voice your opinions for this election.

Through the US Politics app, you can see which of your friends support which candidates. This might not be for everyone; if you’ve got politically rabid friends you may be incessantly accosted.

Read on to your heart’s content »

As the Facebook Blog reports today, our favorite social website has added another feature. It is exactly what it sounds like: a user can now group their friends into “lists.” As promised by Facebook, these new friend lists will have a more important role early next year. For now it remains one more way of categorizing and messaging groups of people. Who will make my “Real Friends” list?

• Friend Lists [via the Facebook Blog]

Hey everybody, hope your semesters/quarters are winding down well. If you’re looking for some time to kill and to further educate yourself on the monster-that-is-also-known-as-Facebook, read on.

I’m Ready to Bail on Facebook: The New Face of Evil [from the digg frontpage]

Everyone has by now noticed Facebook’s pre-Thanksgiving addition to the News Feed. Now you’ll find a little “thumbs up” and “X” next to each story in the feed. Click on these and your News Feed preference sliders will update themselves. Schweet.

Just thought you should know…

Kelly and Chris discussed Facebook Beacon in the last podcast episode, and Kelly linked to this article in a previous post, but I thought it might be useful to put it up front and center.

If you were against the Newsfeed from the beginning, you’re probably against Facebook Beacon. If this is the case, you can easily block outside sites from accessing your Facebook and sharing information to all your friends about which products you’re buying, which games you’re playing, which sites you’re visiting by doing the following:

1. Download and Install the BlockSite plugin for Firefox.
2. After restarting Firefox select ‘Add-ons’ from the Tools menu.
3. Click the ‘Options’ button on the BlockSite extension.
4. Click the ‘Add’ button.
5. Enter http://*facebook.com/beacon/* into the input box. Note the asterisks!
6. Click ‘OK’.
7. Click ‘OK’ again, and you are good to go. [via the Idea Shower]

Earlier last week, Facebook continued its march to dominate the world in all things Internet related. And whenever the Facebook developers even breathe, we here at HackCollege are here to report the news. Facebook rolled out three new products. To help explain, we’ll address each of them separately.

Read on to your heart’s content »

Danah Boyd, a PhD candidate at the School of Information at University of California - Berkeley, recently wrote a short essay on the apparent social class division between MySpace users and Facebook users on her blog.

In her essay, she begins with a quick distinction between the users of each social network:

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other “good” kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we’d call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, “burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.

When Facebook first came online, it was limited to Ivy-League students. Soon, however, more colleges were added, yet a college-style .edu email address was absolutely required. (Though this restriction has recently been lifted)

MySpace, on the other hand, started off primarily with bands and artists seeking their own “web space”. Teenage concert goers flocked to MySpace to view their favorite bands’ profiles and to create their own accounts. No college education required. Absolutely none.

And although both currently allow every Internet user to join, MySpace houses all the sexual predators. Are there none on Facebook?

With neither social network now requiring a college education, is the class division Boyd sees still in place? Is the strict Facebook layout more appealing to the upper-class student, with the flexible MySpace layout more eye catching to the lower-class student? And what does that say about you if you’re on both social networks? Or neither?

Let us know in the comments: Which social network do you ascribe to?