Dealing with Over-Updating Facebook Friends

Marty Weintraub from aimClear Search Marketing Blog has become fed up with the mundane noticed some of his casual friends are pumping into Facebook, and he's not going to take it anymore.

The challenge is, he still want to be their friends while avoiding the incessant documentation of every event in their daily lives.

How does he find the balance? By using the Feed Preferences tabs to throttle the types of updates you'll receive in your news feed after logging in:

If hyperactive casual friends (you want to keep) are inadvertently Feed-bombing you, use Feed Preferences to specify up to 20 friends NOT to receive news feeds from at all. You will “only get stories regarding these people if nothing else is available.” There are also sliders which proportionally scale the level, across ALL friends, of incoming Story Types including Groups, Photos, Notes, Relationships, Friends, Wall Posts, Profiles, Status, and Posts.

This looks like a good tip. I've used the unfriend strategy in the past to avoid updates from heavy users, but this may be a better option.

I like it when my friends update their stuff regularly, so I do the same. I know this isn't appreciated by a lot of people.

BUT I get around being annoying by installing the Extended Info application, which let me CHOOSE whether I want to send out an update on the "news feed" just because you wanted to add XTC to my favorite music, etc. Now, only updates are sent out when I upload pictures (the only application I have set to send out news feeds) ... it is wonderful.

Comments

1. Posted by: Teresa Boardman on November 14, 2007 1:06 PM:

My friends twitter all day, they digg, are on linked in, and some on Flickr. I now check all about three times a week. I can't keep up with it all and still have time to throw sheep, write on walls and twitter.

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