Stuff you didn't know you could do on Facebook

Did you know you can add a pronunciation guide to your name on Facebook? Overlay colorful text on the photos you post? How about mark the end of a relationship without your 500 closest friends getting notified?

Many of these tips and tricks aren't well known, even to veterans of the 1.5 billion-strong people-connector and time-waster. Facebook is constantly updating its service, adding new features or tweaking old ones. A lot can slip through the cracks even if you are scrolling through your friends' updates several times a day.

Here are a few ways to enhance your Facebook experience:

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HOW DO YOU SAY THAT?

More than 83 percent of Facebook's users are outside of the U.S. and Canada, and they use over 80 languages to communicate with friends and family. That's a lot of people, and a lot of different ways to say your name. To add a pronunciation guide, go to the "about" section of your profile and click on "details about you," (called "more about you" on mobile) then "name pronunciation." Here, Facebook will offer suggestions for your first and last name that you can listen to before selecting. If none work, you can also type in your own phonetic pronouncer.

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ONE-TIME PASSWORD

Logging in from a public computer? If you don't feel comfortable typing in your password on a shared machine that might have malicious software, Facebook lets you request a temporary one by texting "otp" to 32665. You'll get an eight-character passcode that works for the next 20 minutes and cannot be reused.

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UNSUBSCRIBE

Anyone who's commented on a popular Facebook post, or belongs to a particularly chatty group, knows that those notifications telling you that "Jane Doe and 4 others also commented on a post" can get a bit annoying. You can turn off notifications for individual posts by clicking on the globe icon on the top right corner of your Web browser, then on the "X'' next to the individual notification. You can also change your notification settings here to get fewer or more of them for each group that you belong to.

To do this on mobile, click to view the original post, then click the down arrow in the top right corner of the post. You'll see an option to "turn off notifications."

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KEEP IT ON THE DOWN-LOW

Announcing engagements and marriages on Facebook is fun. Post and watch the likes and congrats roll in. Bask in the love and glory. Fast-forward a few years for some couples, and the glory fades, not to mention the love and marriage. In this case, you might not want to announce the irreversible breakdown to 450 of your closest friends.

Thankfully, you can still mark the end of a relationship without notifying everyone. Go to your profile and click on the "about" section, then "family and relationships on the left." Under relationship, you'll see a gray icon that probably says "friends," or maybe "public." Change it to "only me." Then change your relationship status. After a while, you can change it back if you wish. Your hundreds of acquaintances will be none the wiser, unless they are stalking your profile to see if you are single.

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PICTURE PERFECT

Thanks to a popular but little-known new feature, Facebook lets you spruce up the photos you post by adding text and quirky stickers, such as drawings of scuba gear, sunglasses or a corn dog. This tool is available on iPhones and is coming soon to Android devices. To use it, choose a photo to upload and click the magic wand icon. Here, you'll find text overlay options as well as the same stickers you can use in other parts of Facebook.

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SECURITY CHECK

Another recent addition to Facebook's trove of tools is a "security checkup" that guides users through a checklist aimed at making their account more secure. This includes logging out of Facebook on Web browsers and apps they are not using, and receiving alerts when someone tries to log in to their account from an unfamiliar device or browser. To use it, go to www.facebook.com/help/securitycheckup on your computer—this feature is not yet available on the mobile app.

Indian immigrants reach top ranks in US tech industry

It's no secret that parents in India urge their kids to excel in math and science, believing that it's the clearest path up the social ladder.

But education is only part of the reason Indian immigrants are reaching the top executive ranks at major U.S. corporations - most recently Google Inc.'s appointment of Sundar Pichai this week to chief executive. That followed Microsoft Corp.'s promotion of Satya Nadella to CEO last year.

Along with Indian immigrants leading companies such as Adobe Systems, Nokia, Global Foundries and Mastercard, Pichai and Nadella are evidence that a generation of Indians has benefited from upbringings in a culture that, at its best, values humility, close-knit family ties and respect for all walks of life, according to cultural experts and Indian executives themselves.

Such traits are highly valued in the corporate suite, not just in the U.S. but at any global corporation.

Mix in India's ongoing cultural chaos, which, for those who survive it, offers real-life lessons in cooperation, teamwork and leadership, and experts say it makes sense that executives might emerge, capable of steering a sprawling workforce through rapid change.

"A very strong educational base and technical skills are key to many parts of the tech ecosystem," said Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems. "Strong entrepreneurial skills and work ethic ... and growing up and dealing with scarce resources give the Indian community an advantage."

It's not just top executives, either. There are 89,000 Indians living in Silicon Valley, according to the Migration Policy Institute, with most of the families involved in the tech industry. Another 86,000 Indians live in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.

Many have jumped into the startup economy. Vivek Wadhwa, who teaches at Stanford and Duke universities and has studied Indian American entrepreneurs, found that by 2012, nearly 16 percent of startups in Silicon Valley had an Indian co-founder even though Indians represented just 6 percent of the region's population. The figure for Indian startups is even higher in some areas, such as business software.

Venktesh Shukla, a venture capitalist and president of the Silicon Valley networking group the Indus Entrepreneurs, said even in the smallest of villages, Muslims live next to Hindus and white-collar professionals next to weavers. Languages, dress and hobbies diverge. Skukla said they were taught to see the "different" people as neither superior nor inferior.

"Treating people with respect comes very naturally to Indians," he said. "People from homogenous societies need that as an acquired skill."

The respect showed through small gestures when running his own software startup, Shukla said. He'd offered his ear especially to employees who weren't talking much. He kept decision-making open-ended in favor of blanket policies. It added up to more viewpoints and greater success, he concluded.

Last year, Nadella was the first male CEO to address the annual Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing. He committed a self-admitted goof onstage, saying women shouldn't ask for raises but rather trust that they will come their way.

He acknowledged later that imputing his own experience to others was "insensitive."

It's the same mix of humility and respect that keeps Naghi Prasad in the office until midnight some days even though he doesn't have a deadline bearing down. His father had been a linguistics researcher who emphasized that when he asked his team to work, he did too.

"He wanted me to lead by example, to walk the walk," said Prasad, who recently sold his Silicon Valley ad tech company to Rakuten Marketing and became its senior vice president for mobile.

Staying behind as a show of support also demonstrates what he saw in a large Indian family: The success of individuals is crucial to the success of the family, so it's important to acknowledge the work of others.

Balancing respect with the Silicon Valley ethos of going all out to succeed isn't easy. But Indian tech leaders said they think expertise on both fronts gives them an edge, that competitive drive emerges naturally in a country with a billion people and limited opportunities.

"Government corruption, noise, pollution, traffic - every which way you go it's problem, problem, problem," Wadhwa said. "To survive, you have to be creative."

Unlike the people in some cultures, Indians learn to challenge authority, a legacy of the country's fight for independence from Britain. Indians learn English in school, and because the best-educated speak it fluently, they assimilate well into global-oriented businesses, where English is the primary language.

All these advantages belong to the cream of the crop, in a country deep in poverty and beset with enormous social problems, of course.

"You don't leave behind a middle-class existence to become dirt," Wadhwa said. "They are the top 1 percent of India, and now you put them in the fertile ground of Silicon Valley and you have the magic."

With more U.S.-educated Indians choosing to return to India to start companies, there's concern a brain drain might cause the Indian influence to wane. Several startups in India have surpassed $1 billion valuations on the private market, and they're poaching some top Silicon Valley executives.

But the Indians who stick around have one trend to be excited about. Smart technology leaders with enough business sense are increasingly being elevated in companies, giving a leg up to Indians who traditionally have fewer sales and marketing skills. That's part of why Pichai quickly rose up through the ranks at Google over the last 11 years. Shukla called it a tribute to Google and Microsoft that Pichai and Nadella had reached the top positions.

"They are relentless in identifying talent in early stages of their careers and providing opportunities for people who are so different to end up at the top," he said. "It's a reflection of the meritocratic cultures of these companies."

There's another positive sign too. About a third of the 2 million people in the Indian diaspora in the U.S. are children of immigrants, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

Wadhwa worried a decade ago whether the next generation would be as successful, but he's realizing as his son's generation nears its 30s that they are on a path to be strong performers. Success stories include Indian born but Toronto-raised Apoorva Mehta, who's grocery delivery startup Instacart has been valued at more than $2 billion by its investors.

"The second generation has the best of both worlds," Wadhwa said. "They have my values yet all the American advantages. They can achieve the same as my generation at much younger age."

What's next for YouTube as Google reorganizes?

Google stunned the tech world earlier this week when it announced the launch of Alphabet, a parent corporation designed to allow the continuation of what CEO Larry Page calls "smaller bets" for better innovation.

In the process, many speculative ventures were spun off into satellite companies, leaving a slimmer, more focused original Google.

One company that didn't go with the Alphabet crowd: YouTube.

With more than 1 billion users and a reported value of $70 billion, YouTube, which will remain part of Google, has evolved into a major asset for Sergey Brin and Page's empire, a seemingly farfetched notion when the tech giant first acquired the once-small company in 2006.

But even as the video platform is at a point in its history where it can cement its dominance and become ever more lucrative, some are asking: Is YouTube too big to innovate?

The company faces a fierce race by competitors - Facebook, Vine, Vessel and others - to unseat it as the premiere platform in the marketplace.

"YouTube has plenty of room to grow but competition is its biggest challenge," said Paul Verna, a senior analyst at research firm EMarketer. "Also, when you have (a company) that big ... growth is going to come in smaller increments. I think they are a very smart company that's done a lot of things right. They are still well positioned to stay ahead."

YouTube, which began operating under the motto "broadcast yourself," came into prominence as a democratic space where anyone with a camera could post a video. Its amateur style and lack of curation was part of the appeal.

The video platform has since evolved into a hub of programming from all parts of the entertainment industry. But it is best known for its amateur video creators, many of whom have become professional digital stars more popular than traditional celebrities - at least in sought-after younger demographic groups.

Most YouTube creators, who regularly post content to their channels, generally stay on the platform to cultivate their fan base. Some, however, complain about the lack of revenue generated from their videos.

With any YouTube ad, the largest share of the money (55 percent) goes to the creator, according to an analyst familiar with YouTube's business practices. Those who don't think that's enough sometimes branch out beyond YouTube to new platforms in order to make more money and expand their digital footprints.