Image via WikipediaIt’s that time of year again. The annual Facebook update that fills our news feeds with myriad grievances about how awful and confusing it is. Laments of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”Memo to Mark Zuckerberg: People don’t like change. The main issue with Facebook’s frequent updates is that we’re constantly being forced to learn and relearn how features can be used to our benefit. The last few updates left me wondering if new features had the end user in mind at all — or if they were just attempts to compete with other popular platforms, such as Twitter, or drive value for brands.
But that all changed for me with this recent round of updates. In some ways, I believe we’re witnessing the “re-personalization” of Facebook.
One of my biggest issues with the platform started the minute they gave companies, politicians, organizations, family, best friends, fringe friends, co-workers and that guy you met on the airplane to Chicago equal billing on your news feed. In life, we’re able to choose what we want to read, who we want to talk to and how we interact with brands we like, but in virtual life, we lost the ability to filter out the things we’re not interested in.
This recent update has given us back some of the power by allowing us to indicate what types of updates we want, from whom. In other words, you no longer have to look at Bob’s daily photo-documentation of his lunch, but you can still see his status updates about the soccer team you both love. Moving forward, if our news feeds are still inundated with items that don’t interest us, we only have ourselves to blame.
And if going through your friend list person by person to decide what level of information you want to see from them sounds onerous, you can create lists that categorize friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances, etc. — instead of deciding “what” you’re interested, you can focus on “who” you’re interested in. The only issue with this approach is that the friends in question can see which list they’re on — a feature that’s fine if, as on Twitter, the lists you’re making are interest-focused (i.e., politics, food) and borderline offensive if the lists you’re making are relationship-focused (i.e., best friends).
The new Facebook features can help us connect in more meaningful ways with the people we know and care about, while also giving us a new opportunity to subscribe to profiles of people who share our interests or are leaders in areas in which we want information and opinions. We’ve been given more control over how we want to experience the platform, and now it’s up to us to use it.
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