Facebook launched the new page browser last week making it easier for users to discover new pages. Pages are displayed in a grid of photos. Any that have blue borders are pages that you already like. You can view all or sift through them via seven categories such as Movies, TV Shows, Celebrities, etc.
To the right of the page is a list of your friends with similar interests and it tells you how many pages you like in common.
As you can see my own page is listed first. I am assuming that everyone sees it that position ;-)
There are four things that would make this a lot more useful.
- Search – The regular Facebook search box is still at the top of the page but I would like to be able to search the page browser.
- More Categories – I don’t care too much about Celebrities or TV Shows so I would like to see other categories such as Authors, Gadgets, and Technology.
- All My Likes – I would like to filter by all of the pages that I like. This would provide easy access to the pages to unlike them or make them favorites.
- Remove Ronaldo – I may love soccer but I can’t stand Christiano Ronaldo and would like him removed from the first set of results ;-) And what the heck is Vin Diesel doing there?
To the right in the Similar Friends section you can see what pages you like in common. You can also see the pages the person likes that you don’t. This is useful – if Erin and I have a lot of similar interests then there is a good chance I will like the other pages that she also likes.
Clicking on the person’s name brings up a pop-up where you can view the pages your friends like, like the page, and click to visit those pages.
So far, I like the people browser. I just hope Facebook adds more features to it to make it more useful.
Awesome.. they are building new and new features at a rapid pace and blew away the competition. I do not even hear the words ‘myspace’ and ‘orkut’ these days unless for some virus alerts lol. At this pace, they might even develop a powerful search engine that can take things away from Google’s control.
Hi Ajith – I would like for google to have less control but I’m not sure that
I want it to be Facebook ;-) This, however, is a step in the right direction – and it’s pretty too :-)
Christiano Ronaldo and Vin Diesel? You’re lucky! :) I’ve got Britney Spears and Ashton Kutcher :)
Hi Slava – LOL – I win ;-)
Very cool! thanks for the heads up on this. My fan page (http://www.facebook.com/emarketingstrategist) shows up first for me.
Seems to me the algo shows you your own pages first, them mixes in pages your Friends like with some pages they think you might like based on your and your Friend’s likes.
The thing that kind of creeped my out though was it suggested a tiny hotel in northern California whose website link I sent to my Uncle via a Facebook message last week. That’s a little too much data mining for my tastes.
Hi – That is really creepy and is taking personalization WAY too far.
Facebook is definitely getting better at getting fans more deeply involved. Nice move!
Hi Vered – This is a good move for once – I hope they make it even
more useful.
Tweeted!
Still not a FB member. ;)
Hi Dennis – Thanks! And why not? ;-)
Still deciding. lol
Nice feature from Facebook but I’m afraid to to sucked into hours of surfing all those newly discovered pages.
Hi John – I know, right? ;-)
I LOVE #4, Kim. As a former resident of the U.K., it was bad enough seeing his smarmy mug all over the papers and TV stations there. I don’t need him in my Facebook stream, either!
Hi Danny – Absolutely can’t stand him. I like Real Madrid and I can barely watch them anymore ;-)
Kim I think the Facebook page browser is really cool. I noticed this a couple of days ago. I love how it gives you a display of potential sites you would like!
Hi Bill – It’s definitely a step in the right direction and it looks really nice.