Comments on: Quick Tutorial: Facebook’s Home Page Feed Options

By: scribe

scribe — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:29:41 +0000

Not sure if anyone has noticed, but the Edit Options has changed once again. I actually liked the feature that allowed adding people to a “see more of” list. Gone. As is the numerical count of how many people to include in the Live Feed.

Are these guys totally ADD and have to screw with things weekly? Grrr.

By: Greg Pincus

Greg Pincus — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:41:20 +0000

I’m curious, FacebookUser, why you wouldn’t reveal your name or site here. Since you’ve left the only comment (currently) at the add-on’s page that you link to, I’m wondering if you might not be its developer? I’d also note that one person’s “junk” is another person’s treasure….

The add-on might very well be useful, though I’d note that you can fine tune your Feeds via the Settings button (upper right on the Facebook page) as well. And you can do it without attitude

By: FacebookUser

FacebookUser — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:31:42 +0000

This Firefox add-on can make the LIVE news feed less cluttered with all that worthless posting that many are complaining they dont need to see and just wastes their time scrolling through junk.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/47397

Relief for Facebook spam

By: Greg Pincus

Greg Pincus — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:01:28 +0000

Vicki – myguess is that you’ve gotten to Edit Option in the News Feed and not in the Live News Feed. You need to do it from the Live Feed in order to be able to change the default number.

For what it’s worth, I wrote more about that quirk in another post:
http://www.thehappyaccident.net/quick-tutorial-facebooks-home-page-feed-options/

If that isn’t the solution… uh… well… uh… I don’t know. I still can get mine to appear, and it always lets me change the number. So if you’re still having problems, shoot me an email and let’s see if we can track it down.

By: Barbara Jean Hicks

Barbara Jean Hicks — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:46:44 +0000

Thanks, Greg–I was going nuts looking for things that I couldn’t find! How do you KNOW all this stuff?!

By: Vicki Arkoff

Vicki Arkoff — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:17:17 +0000

Thanks Greg I have the Edit Options thingie but it doesn’t give me an option to change my default 250. Ideas so I can increase it?

By: Greg Pincus

Greg Pincus — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:03:58 +0000

Steve – I don’t know for sure, no. I suspect it’s an algorithm that ranks them based on a slew of factors – maybe things like how often you’ve replied to them or commented on their status, how long you’ve been friends, number of mutual connections, etc. And it might even be a rotating list of 250. It’s cloaked in mystery – perhaps not intentionally, but I simply can’t find the answer!

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:13:25 +0000

Greg: Any idea how FB goes about picking the 250 that becomes your default news feed?

By: Greg Pincus

Greg Pincus — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:52:23 +0000

No, Holly, that’s not inexperience – just something most of us never think about!

Status updates are simply all the things we enter in the box that says “what’s on your mind?”

The Live Feed contains all those updates plus things like “Greg became a fan of Elbows” and “George and Martha are now friends” and who was tagged in photos and and and. You can control what’s in that feed via your Settings tab at the top – for example, you can make it so you don’t see quiz results.

In both cases, you can make it so that you don’t see certain people’s updates, too, by hiding them for real, not just as I used them in my example above!

By: Holly

Holly — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:28:52 +0000

So this is going to mark me as a very inexperienced FaceBooker but what is the difference between a News Feed and a Status Update? I can’t tell. maybe that’s why I haven’t been bothered by the change…