My Thoughts on Technology and Jamaica: Facebook Groups App and How to connect Groups on your Smartphone or Tablet

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Facebook Groups App and How to connect Groups on your Smartphone or Tablet

Facebook is churning out yet another App that’s basically been a trend for quite awhile now: Facebook Groups App.

That’s right folks!

There is now an App launched on Tuesday November 8th 2014 for Facebook Groups that allows you to go directly to your Groups that you regularly log into as well as create a new Group as explained in the article “Facebook singles out Groups, in trend toward standalone apps”, published November 18, 2014 10:00 AM PST by Ian Sherr, CNET News.

It’s called the Facebook Groups App and is available on both Google Play Store and the Apple iTunes Store as announced in a Facebook’s Press Release article “Introducing the Facebook Groups App”, published November 18, 2014 By Shirley Sun, Product Manager, Facebook Newsroom.

The Facebook Groups App is a product of Facebook Creative Labs, the same group also responsible for the not-doing-so-well Slingshot App as reported in the article “Facebook’s Newest App Lets You Chat in Small Groups”, published Nov. 18, 2014 by Jack Linshi, Time Magazine.




Facebook peeps often log in multiple times per day, more than any other Social Network, both Laptop and PC based and Social Mobile Networks on smartphones and tablets based on the statistics analysis of analyst Global Web Index as detailed in my blog article entitled “Global Web Index indicates Snapchat is King - Why Tumblr and Pinterest on the rise as Facebook has higher engagement levels”.


This is an indication of a very high engagement rate. Anecdotally, I rarely see anyone on Facebook anymore when I log in. Most of the status posts on my Facebook  Newsfeed are mostly within the various groups I’ve joined.

The rest is from the various Science, Technology and News Facebook  Pages I’ve joined to keep track of News to provide fodder for my blog articles as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “Pew Research posits 3 in 10 get their News via Facebook as Paper set to go live”.

Facebook Groups App – How to connect to your Facebook Groups on your Smartphone or Tablet

Interestingly too, whenever I go onto Facebook  on my Laptop or when I’m logged into a computer in the E-Learning Lab at MICO University College, I mainly post in my groups. As you should know, there are three (3) types of groups, which this Facebook Groups App organizes for you quite nicely:

1.      Open
2.      Closed
3.      Secret

For this reason, I have a preset list of my favorite Groups to visit, as I usually just post on my page for the purpose of doing reflection of the day’s News and Personal events. That list of my favorite Facebook  Groups is as follows:

1.      https://www.facebook.com/groups/103769586401811
2.      https://www.facebook.com/groups/1planet.dj/
3.      https://www.facebook.com/groups/2222177833
4.      https://www.facebook.com/groups/70891779392
5.      https://www.facebook.com/groups/iamjamaica
6.      https://www.facebook.com/groups/JamaicanVybes
7.      https://www.facebook.com/groups/Pissout.mymind

I find the listing to the right hand side doesn’t seem to list all the groups that I frequently post in, but apparently lists them according to some unknown algorithm.



Truth be told, I spend more time on Twitter than I do in Facebook, as Twitter is more geared to discovering Technology News and News in General ever since their redesign as noted in my blog article entitled “How to Download Twitter user Pictures as Twitter makes Facebook Timeline changes”.

Twitter analytics allows me to gauge what News story is news-worthy and blog worth enough to blog about as noted in my blog article entitled “Twitter rolls out Twitter Analytics - Free Twitter Analytics Impressions, Engagement and Engagement Rate will boost Advertisers and Brands on Twitter”.


So now that there’s a Facebook Groups App that makes it easier for you to connect directly to your groups on a smartphone, where you can’t so conveniently keep a Text file list of your groups, their Engagement level will increase. You can even create a group right there in the Facebook Groups App.

If you’re apprehensive about committing to yet another app cluttering up your space on your smartphone, you can still access the Facebook Groups App functionality in the Main Facebook App.

Still, you’ll miss out on such unique gems such as the Facebook Groups App that pairs you with a group that suits you to a “T” as detailed in the article “Facebook Launches Standalone Groups App To Stoke Micro-Sharing”, published Nov 18, 2014 by Josh Constine, Techcrunch.

Even at the expense of your Facebook Newsfeed becoming a ghost town inhabited by News and Science Websites.

Here’s the link:



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