By Madeline Lewis With technology growing at rates faster than the recent oil spill, Facebook has simultaneously expanded and increased its services. Often times, new features are revealed but Facebook users are unaware of them. Here are five things you may not know about Facebook or its features, ranging from privacy settings to connecting your Facebook page to other sites:

1) You can create your own URL for your Facebook page If you want to make it easier for others to find you, especially friends or co-workers who do not yet have Facebook accounts, make sure to set up your personalized URL (i.e. www.Facebook.com/YourName). It’s free and easy to do.

To claim your URL just go to http://www.facebook.com/username/.

2) You can syndicate your Blog/Twitter feed with Facebook Facebook allows each user to import one RSS-syndicated site such as your blog. Anytime you post a blog entry or tweet, the post will automatically upload to your Facebook Notes for all of your friends to see.

Just go to http://ow.ly/1VK3P to set up the importing feature.

3) You can export Facebook events to your calendar At the bottom of the Events page on Facebook (get there by clicking the Events tab on the left of your main page), click Export Events to export all of your events to your calendar of choice. Or to select specific events to export, go to the specific event page and click Export Event.  Microsoft Outlook, iCal and Google Calendar all support this easy-to-use feature.

4) Facebook can change its 'Terms of Service' at any time Facebook is clear in its Terms of Service that “We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change, modify, add, or delete portions of these Terms of Use at any time without further notice.” This means they can change privacy settings and availability of user data if you are not careful. Stay up-to-date with the TOS and check regularly to make sure that you are protected in the ways you want to be by visiting the privacy settings in the Account menu.

5) Facebook Applications are NOT Always Safe Facebook does not screen or approve developers of applications. So, if you are required to allow access to your information, know that these developers can utilize this information for their own purposes. Beware of sharing information.

The next step is to go forth and Facebook smartly!

Feel free to share your comments;

- Madeline

E: Madeline@socialmediadelivered.com.s209167.gridserver.com T: Twitter.com/MadelineLewis43