Facebook to introduce interest lists


9 Mar 2012

Facebook will introduce a new ‘interest lists’ feature, which allows users to keep updated with public figures and pages for a particular subject.

According to Facebook, users will see an ‘Add Interests’ link in the bookmarks section on their Facebook accounts. When users add an interest, they can subscribe to a list on this topic to get information on it in one feed.

The social network already allows users to create lists for people, however, this will let them filter content in the same way.

The subjects for lists can be broad ranging, such as business and sports, or can be on a much more specific subject, such as art criticism. Users can create their own lists to let others discover content on the matter or they can keep the lists private.

The top stories from each interest will also appear in users’ news feeds to help them find the most interesting headlines or to click through to read more posts on the subject.

Late last year, Facebook introduced a ‘subscribe’ function to allow users to follow what people were saying publicly on their Facebook accounts without having to be friends with them. The new interests lists will cater to organising content from these people as well as filtering through content from Facebook pages.