Facebook has launched a new feature called ‘Interests’ which allows you to make lists of interests to personalise and enhance your Facebook experience.
The latest unveiling from Facebook, the new ‘Interests’ feature is one that allows the user to create their personalised feed. The user adds pages of interests to the ‘Interest’ category which subscribes them to the feed from that and other chosen pages creating what has been described as a personalised newspaper.
The idea it seems is to raise the profile of Facebook from one which widely used for drunken picture sharing, ex-stalking flirting and more to one which promotes people’s leisure activities and common interests.
The recent changes to the feeds that we all see have meant that our feeds are no longer what we originally chose them to be. This new feature makes the user be in charged of what they see in feeds by subscribing to the pages that they really want to receive updates from.
You will receive suggestions on pages you might like to subscribe to. You can also suggest pages to others and invite them to join pages of the same interests.
Here is the link if you wish to either see for yourself or start creating your own Facebook interests list.
Here is how to get started with Facebook ‘Interests‘ : After clicking on the link, a semi blank panel will appear with an ‘Add interests‘ button to the right. Click on this to go to the next page.
On the next page, you will see a ‘Create Lists‘ button. Click on this. Your ‘Interests’ pop-up box will appear.
Clicking on a category tab in the left hand menu will bring up suggestions of pages that are in that line of interest. Some will be pages you have already liked and some pages will be suggested. To add those pages to your interest categories, just click on them. Once you have clicked to add a page to your list, you will then see this pop-up.
You will now need to choose a name for the list that you would like the group or page you added to appear in (i.e. if it was a music page you added, maybe you could call it favourite music or if it was a sports page call it football/baseball whatever is appropriate). You then need to choose whether it is to be visible to your friends or the public in general. You also have the option to make it private.
After you have made these choices, your newly named category will appear in your left hand Facebook menu under ‘Interests’ for you to click on and view or add to as you wish. As you can see, my named category was music. Clicking on ‘Music’ will take me to the page where music feeds appear.
It is not just pages of interest that you can choose to follow. You can add a friends category also and you will be able to see their feeds whereas at present (due to the recent changes) you can only see some of them. Click on the interests tab again and the first pop-up page will come up. Right at the top of the left hand list of categories you will see ‘Friends’. If you click on this, you will see all of your friends. You can start to add them one by one to your feed. You could perhaps organize this feed by games, you could create a list for YoVille so that you get to see all of the Hot Dogs and energies on offer. You may create different lists for different games.
Being able to choose who or what to follow and get updates from makes Facebook not that dissimilar to Twitter. It will be interesting to see how it affects Twitter in the future as Facebook ‘Interests’ progresses.
What do you think of the new Facebook ‘Interests’ feature? Will you be creating your own interest lists and feeds? Do you like the idea of being able to decide what pages and friends you can receive updates and statuses from? Leave your comments in the box below. We’d love to hear from you.
