Facebook Attempts to Outwit Google+ Circles with 'Smart' Friends Filter

Posted 09/14/2011 at 5:27am | by Paul Lilly

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It's starting to become clear why Mark Zuckerberg joined Google+ and it's not because he's grown tired of his own social network. He wants to know the competition, as in Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, and maybe learn a thing or three in the process. Zuckerberg seems to have learned that Google+'s social Circles rock and Facebook's friend lists could use a bit of work, so Mr. Zuckerberg and company went to work improving things.

Facebook announced the change to its friend lists in a blog post, noting that "lists have existed for several years, but you've told us how time-consuming it is to organize lists for different parts of your life and keep them up to date." Translation: "Our friend lists suck, hardly anyone's using them, so we're going to make it easier."

It starts with "Smart lists." These are intelligent lists that create themselves and keep up-to-date without any user intervention. There will be four Smart lists to start, including Work, School, Family, and City. An algorithm analyzes your friends' profiles and puts them in the appropriate lists, assuming you choose to use them (they are still optional, after all). If you do, you can always go in and manually tweak your lists, just in case you don't want Bob from accounting to know what you and your co-workers were up to over the weekend.

In addition to these Smart lists, Facebook is also introducing Close Friends and Acquaintances lists, which you'll update manually. These are self-explanatory Circles lists, though it's worth mentioning that you'll receive less updates from people you put in your Acquaintances bubble, while still being notified of "important things they post -- like when they get married or move to a new city -- so you don't lose touch completely."

Finally, Facebook is implementing a feature called Better Suggestions. What this means is Facebook will provide suggestions for all your friend lists, and when you add someone as a friend or confirm a friend request, you'll have the option right then and there of adding them to an existing list.

Are you looking forward to the changes, or have you moved on to Google+ and don't plan on looking back?

Image Credit: Facebook