Facebook Lists: Evolution or Trying to Keep Up?
By: Sara Alderman | @sea6789 In case you haven't noticed yet, Facebook has now implemented Friend Lists, which allow you to organize your connections and choose who sees what posts.
Everyone complains every time Facebook implements new changes. Apparently, only about 1 percent of Facebook's millions of users are comfortable with change. Some of the changes in the past have been due to security issues, capacity overloads and making the platform more user friendly. So, what is the reason for the most recent changes? Is it just the evolution of Facebook, or is everyone's favorite social network trying to keep up with other social networking sites like Google+?
As The Facebook Blog points out, friend lists have been around for years, but most users couldn’t find them and didn't utilize them. All the lists accomplished was to make Facebook more user friendly and accessible for the “everyday user” by organizing connections. It may just be a coincidence that Google+ circles is one of the new social network's most popular features and now Facebook suddenly has lists which function very similarly. We're a bit suspicious, though.
The Facebook lists(seen below) help sort out friends so you can see information only on the people you want.
Google+ allows you to sort people into circles(seen below) and share information with those people. Google+ does not have all of the options that Facebook has, but could it have the social media giant shaking in its boots?
One thing that Google+ does not do is allow you to clone your groups. If you put someone in a group and do not want them there, but want to start a new group you have to follow several steps.
Facebook has had a chance to see the kinks in Google+ and avoid the same mistakes by making their list function more flexible for the user. Is Facebook adding on features to try and stay on top, or were they really already working on this option before Google+ hit the internet? Considering the flood of other changes recently, including the new news feed and imminent new profile changes, we think Facebook is determined to hold onto its lead in the social network arena and isn't afraid of integrating the most popular features of other sites.