Smart Lists will be automatically populated with some of your friends

Sep 14, 2011 08:35 GMT  ·  By

It didn't take long for Facebook to learn from Google+ and come up with its own version of the best features. This is what Facebook has always done, copying the best features from other products, and it's what pushed it to be the largest social network on the planet.

It may not seem fair, but it doesn't really matter, as long as users get a better product as a result.

Now Facebook is introducing Smart Lists as well as better sharing and privacy tools.

The big news is the revamped friend lists. Facebook has had lists for years now, but they're not really used since few people put in the effort to create and maintain them.

As such, they don't get featured too much either on the site. That's about to change. Facebook is making it easier to maintain lists and is even creating some of them automatically.

"Want to see posts from your closest friends? Or perhaps you'd like to share a personal story with your family—without also telling all your co-workers. With improved Friend Lists, you can easily see updates from and share with different lists of friends," Facebook's Blake Ross wrote.

"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," he explained.

The so-called Smart Lists are filled in by Facebook and kept up to date automatically based on several criteria. There are smart lists for work, school, family and city.

They're populated based on your own profile data and the one from your friends.

Facebook is also creating two more lists, but it's letting you fill them in, Close Friends and Acquaintances. As the names suggest, the two lists are intended to make it easier to differentiate among your Facebook friends.

The idea is that you share some things with your close friends and others with acquaintances. But if you don't want to share anything with a friend, simply add them to the new Restricted list and they'll only see your public posts.

Facebook will also use lists more, specifically, it's making it easier to share things with just the people you want. When you post something, you'll be able to select who sees it from the drop down list which will feature your lists and groups.