Facebook has rolled out a a new “smart friends” list feature, TechCrunch reports.
Facebook is still the most popular social networking site, but you probably still have quite a few friends, some family, some school friends, some friends from work. Sorting through them all can be a pain. But Facebook has officially rolled out a new feature that will make it easier to corral your friends into lists.
The new “smart lists” will be generated by people you went to school with, work with, and and family members. Friends list have been around for a while, but it’s often been so time-consuming to sort through all your friends (sociologists put the maximum number of friends, or at least the number of people you’re on a first-name basis with, at a maximum of around 200) that most people don’t even bother doing so.
It’ll be easier to control who sees what when you update your status and your photos. Let’s be honest, you’ve probably done some things you wouldn’t want your parents or boss to see, and now you can really be more selective about posting your questionable exploits on the site.
Facebook is also making some changes to the way you see your friends’ status updates. You’ll be able to see more detail from your closest friends, and less detail from your acquaintances list. With your acquaintances list, you’ll only see things like birthdays and marriages.
And if your social circle is getting a little stale, Facebook is also improving their friend suggestions by making them a little smarter.
It appears that Facebook has learned a lot from their newest rival, Google+, which has revealed how inadequate the traditional “big bucket of friends” social networking model. They’ve realized that we all have different contexts for the people we know, and if Facebook makes it easier for their users to negotiate them, they’ll remain successful for a long time.
