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Facebook, the social networking site, announced that it would introduce more complex privacy controls, as well as a new instant-messaging service.

The new privacy controls will allow users to choose which of their friends can see information such as their photo albums, mobile phone number or e-mail address. Facebook users will also be able to share information about themselves with a wider group of people, thanks to a new "friends-of-friends" feature that is also expected to be available soon.

In December, Facebook introduced the ability to organize friends into groups, such as running buddies or members of the same club. Users could send one message to the entire group, but couldn't do much else. Now, members can use the groups to decide how much personal information their friends can access. Users can block a personal photo album from their co-workers. Or they can let only their hometown friends see their home phone number.

Previously, the only ways to block people from seeing specific content was to deny their friend requests outright or to create a limited profile. The second solution had the downside of blocking entire groups of people from a wide swath of content.

The social-networking site has been criticized in the past for breaching its users' privacy. Two years ago, it introduced "news feed," an application that sends updates on a user's activities to people in their network. Last year, it introduced Beacon, a system that alerted friends about a user's activities on other Web sites, such as items they had purchased on Overstock.com or business reviews they had written on Yelp.com.

In both cases, Facebook users revolted, angry that information they hadn't meant to share had been suddenly broadcast to their friends. And in both cases, they forced the site to develop additional privacy tools.

"With Beacon we just screwed it up," said Matt Cohler, Facebook's vice president of product management. "It was just poor execution on our part."

In addition, the company confirmed recent reports it is working on a new instant messaging chat feature that runs inside Facebook, allowing users to hold spontaneous back-and- forth chat with their friends on the site.

Facebook Chat, as the feature is known, will be introduced in a matter of weeks, the company said. It works inside a Web browser without requiring that users download any special software, akin to services such as Meebo.com to allow one-on- one chats.