A few months ago, I heard that Facebook released their new groups feature and, to be honest, I was confused about this announcement. People have always been able to create groups to share their interests and obsessions, so how is this a new feature? Actually, for a while now it seemed that the group feature is on its deathbed being pushed out in favor of the fanpage.

After a little digging, I realized that Facebook has a clear naming issue at hand, what they meant with groups are more like personal groups for users much like Twitter lists and, at the release of the service, it was actually labeled as “create a new list”!

Have I lost you? Well, let me give you an analogy. Remember when you first started using Facebook where only people you really wanted to stay in touch with were on it, and you felt free to share with them your pictures and status updates without a worry about either security or privacy and how that feeling was completely ruined when everyone and their kitchen sink became your friend on Facebook? Well, groups help you regain that private space by allowing you to select a group of your friends that you would like to share updates, photos and documents privately (or if you like openly) that is separate from your main profile effectively creating a mini-Facebook profile within Facebook.