How To Make The Best Of It

Once again Facebook has changed their website. It seems they do it quite a bit lately, and unfortunately this will not be the last time. It seems from the postings today, that more people are upset about it all this time. There are more changes coming in a week or two as well in part to compensate for the threat that Facebook perceives from google+.

It is frustrating I agree but here is a work around that  may reduce some of your stress.

Take A Deep Breath

First off, let me say I agree with you. For the most part, many of the changes do not help anyone. Well, that is not entirely true. This is part of a grander marketing scheme to make more money by those behind Facebook. Whether it is about competition with google or not, simply put Facebook is not in this for your enjoyment, but like all websites online, it is about making money.  They want the market share of your attention which makes them more viable for investors.

That said, it really doesn’t do us any good to stress to much about it. So, fret a bit, take a deep breath and move on. This will not be the last change in how your profile looks or how you keep in touch with your friends. In fact, it is likely it will not be the last change this month.

So, it is best to take a deep breath and try to relax.

Unraveling The Mystery

Now, that being taken care of, there is a way to make your Wall and Friends more useful. It isn’t a perfect, but it is better than what you have starting you in the face.

Take a look at the left sidebar.

Right away you will notice it now shows Favorites, Lists, and Groups. If you have any Pages or Apps it will also list those.

Under Favorites it shows:

• Newsfeed
• Events
• Messages

It may show a few more titles. First, you want to go to Lists. Take another deep breath. :)

Lists

Down below that you see Lists. If you hover over Lists, it will show a link that says More. If you click on More, it will open a new page, where Facebook has broken down your friends in groups based on information from their profiles. Facebook assumes this is how you would like everyone grouped. However, it does give the option of creating your own groupings.

You can see some of mine below.

If you click on any one of the list names, Facebook has already added some of your friends to those groups based on your previous information, or your friends profile information. It does make this process a bit faster. But if you want, you can remove them from your lists or add more people to the list.

You can also create new lists and add any of your friends to them.

Notice the pencil to the side of each list. It gives you two options.

• Add To Favorites
• Always Hide

If you click on Always Hide, you will never see information from people in that list in your newsfeed. If you click Add to Favorites, those Lists will show up in your favorites at the top left of your page. It gets better. You can do the same thing with Pages, Apps, & Groups. All of your most important information in the top section.

Rearranging Your Favorites

You should have by now created your lists of friends you most follow. The ones you have marked as Favorites are now listed in your Favorites list. You can go one step further.

Maybe you would like your Favorites in a different order? I did. It is actually fairly simple to do.

If you hover over the different titles in your Favorites, you will again see the pencil. If you click on the pencil it gives too options.

Remove From Favorites

Rearrange

If you do not want an item in your favorites, click Remove and it will no longer be there.

Click Rearrange and you can modify the order the way you would like. Unfortunately, you cannot move the News Feed, but everything else can be moved or removed.

It will then start showing the comments, posts,etc on the different lists you have created and added to your Favorites. Makes it much easier for most people. Just click the link and the group you want to follow most is what you will see. It will stay that way unless you change to another group.

Still Want More?

The News Feed is always going to be on top of the Favorites. It will take some time, but there is another option to what you will see when you sign on to Facebook.

The most recent story by your friends should show up at the top of your News Feed.

On the top story you have several options as to what to do with that story.

• Mark as top story
• Hide Story
• Report story or spam
• Subscribe to All Updates
• Subscribe to Most Updates
• Subscribe to Only Important Updates
• Unsubscribe from status updates, or
• Unsubscribe from Friend

All of these will change what happens with that story and that friend.

On the next story down, you also have options for what you can do with the story.

• Mark it as the top story
• Hide the story
• Report story or spam
• Hide all by that friend

These two options will take time to do, because each story you see will each need to be considered unless you unsubscribe or hide those posts (stories). If you choose that option in time you will no longer see posts from that person or business.

Another Option?

Join google+ It still has a long way to go to be similar, and there are features here that are not yet available on google yet, but it works, and they don’t change every week.

Before you get too excited, guess what? Facebook is adding music features soon. Maybe next week?