Facebook has slowly been killing a long-time efficient feature, lists. Now with the updated Pages UI, you kinda have some of the functionality of lists back.
Facebook was efficient for me
For years, Facebook was useful to me, because I was able to build specific lists of people and pages. Each list was focused. I had a list of people close to me. A list of people that I wanted to check in on from time to time (but not every day). A list of pages that I really liked.
I could view each of these lists with the posts chronologically. It was awesome. No algorithm. I was in complete control of who was on each list. Every day when I would check my “close friends” list, it was super easy. I could catch up on ALL the posts by these people. When I was done, I was done. There were no more posts. That’s it!
Super-duper efficient.
Facebook killed efficiency
Chronological order killed
Sometime last year Facebook killed the chronological order. Lists could not longer display posts in chronological order. Now lists show the posts in the algorithm sorting. Nooooooo! Facebook picking what you see?! BAD!
Whenever I load my “close friends” list, the same posts would always appear at the top for days. Seriously. Days. I wasn’t seeing everything. In fact, I would see just the same posts all. the. time.
Editing members of lists rarely works
Couple that with Facebook now seems to be disabling the ability to edit these lists. Anytime I go to edit a list, the spinning loading wheel just spins and spins. Leaving me with no ability to even add or remove people from a list.
Facebook clearly does not like chronological order. And Facebook no longer likes lists.
Facebook’s lists are back in a new way
Facebook recently updated their Pages UI. Now you can switch be your Page, instead of yourself. Why is that good news for how to use lists? Here’s a workaround to get the functionality of lists.
For example, I have a personal profile as Matt Maldre. I also have Facebook Page, Spudart. If I switch to Spudart, then I’ll be surfing Facebook as “Spudart”. Anything I like will be liked by “Spudart”. Any post I comment on will be commented as “Spudart”.
The best of all, when I’m using Facebook as “Spudart” the stream that I see is not the stream of people/pages that Matt Maldre follows. The stream is the people/pages that Spudart follows! Yes, Pages can follow people and/or pages.
This drastically changes the way I will use Facebook.
Now with this ability to “switch profiles” on Facebook. Each of my “profiles” has its own stream. This feature means I can have something like my lists back.
I have a Page for Spudart. A Page for my baseball stuff, 57hits. And a page for comic strips, Comic Strip Beat.
- With Spudart, I can view posts from fun creative Pages.
- With 57hits, I can view posts from baseball Pages.
- With Comic Strip Beat, you guessed it, I can view webcomics.
Awesome that I get the functionality of my lists back.
Footnote: You can switch back to your regular personal profile by going to the menu in the upper right.
