The New Facebook: My Frenemy

I've been using facebook for less than a year and it's already on it's second layout update. This latest update has caused quite a stir; many people instantly hated it. I've been intrigued by the new layout, certain it had to be an improvement somehow, but not sure how to best utilize it. When I discovered quite by accident one day how to connect my blog to upload as a note on facebook each time I create a post, I was thrilled! No more posting on my blog and then potentially posting the same thing on facebook. I still create photo albums on facebook, simply because it's easier to create a slideshow that way.

Yesterday, I decided to figure out the whole newsfeed/homepage thing. Since facebook changed the layout, I've felt like I only see updates from the people who constantly change their status. Since only so many updates fit in the feed, I was seeing updates from people I haven't talked to in person for 10 years and missing updates from my family. I am, of course, interested in the old friends, but this new feed felt very limiting.

Maybe I'm just slow to figure things out, but I decided to explore the left-hand side of the page again. I'd figured out that I can see people's notes and photos seperately there, but how could I control the news feed? Then I realized I could create my own sections on the left and filter the updates. My categories are pretty basic: May family, Farmer family, Work friends, Church freinds, school friends, local friends. The categories are pretty arbitrary, but now I can click on these categories and quickly see updates from a small sub-section of my friends. This is not to imply that I have so many friends, this just makes facebook more manageable and less time consuming.

I am excited to keep playing with the new layout and hope that I'll find more discoveries like these!