I hadn’t had my first sip of coffee when my husband, getting ready to walk out the bedroom door, checked his iPhone and burst out laughing. His co-worker had texted:
“Wow, 37 posts in one day, a record.”
The Facebook News Feed Problem
Ouch. Never mind the behind-my-back chatter and lack of spousal support. I’m going to just let that slide, because, maybe, this friend has a point.
In my defense, and yes, I did go back and count my profile listings, none of those were Facebook postings. Most were Twitter postings that are automatically reposted on Facebook, but I also found StumbleUpon website reviews and activity listings of all my interactions within Facebook.
Worst of all, every time Friendfeed collects any of my online activity, and that includes any of the social media sites that I frequent, it is automatically regurgitated onto Facebook.
As a result, my Twitter postings, even my replies and retweets, are getting posted at least twice on Facebook.
Maybe It’s Not a Problem for You
I’m not sure how much of this activity makes its way into my friends’ news feeds. Some may have clicked the “Hide” button to keep me out of their news feed, just as I’m hiding all those Farmville and Mafia Wars entries.
Other friends may be like my daughter who doesn’t even look at her news feed. For her, Facebook is a very cool online answering machine providing personal notifications.
Personally, I enjoy skimming through my news feed, but if I’m limited on time, I bypass the aggregate news feed, and head straight to my Friends Lists. That way, I can prioritize how I go through the postings, dividing time between professional connections or old friends, depending on my availability (or state of mind.)
Fixing The News Feed Problem
That’s how I am able to keep up with my friends’ postings with minimal investment of time, but, how can I make it easier for my friends to keep up with my output?
1. Now that I’ve finally noticed the lock icon next to the share button on my Facebook Wall Publisher, I can customize my postings so that they only go out to designated lists. For example, I might send dog photos to my Family List, and keep the Education News Articles for the Homeschoolers. More likely, I’ll won’t link many articles on Facebook, as it will be an additional step in my daily news sharing.
2. Sadly, I’m editing my privacy settings to prevent any of my Facebook actions from showing up in friends’ news feeds. I didn’t really want to do this, because I like the idea of cross-pollinating friends and, sometimes, I learn something new or rediscover an old friend this way. But, there are other venues for mixing up friends.
2. I’m also editing my application settings so that very few of these automatically publish to my news feed stream. The worst offenders, Friendfeed and StumbleUpon, have been deleted from my authorized applications list. As for the heavy hitter, I cut off the Twitter stream, and set up the Selective Twitter Status Application instead.
Sorry, But You Can Find Me Here
I’m sorry, Dear Old Facebook Friends, you will no longer receive my daily commentary. But, if you’re interested, you can find it here:
- Twitter: @sandrafoyt This is where I connect with moms, educators, writers, geeks, advocates, and pundits (to name a few of my Twitter Lists) to exchange commentary and feedback on parenting, technology, education, homeschooling, gifted ed, writing, and whatever catches my fancy. Generally, this is the more rewarding site for getting feedback, even though we are limited to 140 character posts.
- StumbleUpon: LivingByLearning This is where I review websites on all those topics listed above, but especially those that I use for homeschooling and digital learning.
- Friendfeed: SandraFoyt This is where it gets interesting. All my activity on social media sites – bookmarking, books, news, videos, music, photos, video, and anything else – gets fed into this one place. And, friends can subscribe to see and comment on this aggregate feed.
Related Articles:
- Twitter Envy: Facebook Adds Public Content Sharing
- 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know
- HOW TO: Retweet on Twitter
- oneforty – Twitter apps ranks and reviews.
- Tutorial: Using StumbleUpon
- HOW TO: Get the most out of FriendFeed
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