Facebook launches 'improved friends lists'

Facebook now understands that you might want to share a story with just your friends and not your co-workers or family. Hmm, sound familiar? Perhaps like some Circles? Facebook wrote in a blog post that with their new and improved Friends list, you can easily share updates with and see content from very specific sets of friends. However, a common complaint, according to the social network, is how troublesome and time consuming it is to make lists. In response to those complaints, Facebook's introduced some features to make list generating easier.

Facebook Lists to help you organize and share

The first feature is 'Smart Lists'. These lists will be automatically created and updated based on information on your profile that your friends have in common with you like college information, family and city. There is also a 'Close Friends and Acquaintances' feature where you can see your best friends' photos and updates in one place and content from everyone else whose stuff you don't care about seeing too much will not appear as much. This list is not automatically created and updated by Facebook, you have to manually add your friends in this list. Finally, 'Better Suggestions' is where you can add the right friends to your lists without too much effort.

Friend lists are completely optional. You can then see and share with these lists as you want. Each list will have its own News Feed. Lists created in the past can still be used. You can continue to make new lists, too. When you share something with one particular list, no one will be able to see which list you've shared that content with. However, if you have shared content with one particular list, everyone who is able to receive that shared content will be able to see who else you have shared with. This may make them more comfortable to comment on your content. When you add someone as a friend, you can select which list you'd like to place them in. Finally, you can always see how specific people view your profile which might help fine tune your list creation.