Don't like the new Facebook? Here's how to revive your old news feed.

How to restore Facebook's Most Recent news feed




You can access your Lists from the left sidebar of your news feed.

Do you count yourself among the multitudes who dislike Facebook's latest revision, mainly because it took away the ability to toggle between Top Stories and Most Recent in your news feed? Regarding the new news feed, Facebook explains, "If you haven't visited Facebook for a while, the first things you'll see are top photos and statuses posted while you've been away...If you check Facebook more frequently, you'll see the most recent stories first."

If you don't trust Facebook to sort your news for you, you can manually create a Most Recent news feed. Ironically, you must turn to one of Facebook's new features--Lists--to resurrect the old Most Recent feed. Just create a custom list and add all of your friends and pages to it; the resulting list appears to be sorted by chronological order. Disclaimer: If you have hundreds upon hundreds of Facebook friends, the process will be laborious because there isn't a way to select all, at least that I have found. Instead, you must click one by one to add each friend or page to the list.




Hover over your Lists in the left-hand column and click the More link to get to this page, which shows your lists and provides a button to create a new list.

To create a list, click the Home button in the upper-right corner of Facebook to open the news feed. Then, from the left-hand column, under Favorites, you should see your Lists. Hover over the Lists header and click the More link that appears. It will show you your existing lists, and above them is gray button labeled Create a List. Click the button, name the list Most Recent (or whatever you want), and click Create List.



After creating a list and naming it, you'll need to start adding friends to it, which can take a while.

Next, click the Add Friends link from the middle of where it says, "Add Friends to this list to see their updates." A window will pop up, showing you thumbnails of all of your friends. You'll need to click on each of your friends individually to add them to the list. A blue check mark and border appears when a friend is added.



You need to click one by one to add your friends and pages to a List.

In the upper-left corner of the window is a pull-down menu, showing you other items to add to the list. For my profile, it lists both Friends and Pages. I added pages as well, so I'll get updates from any pages I've liked. Once you have your list set up, click Done and you'll see your Most Recent list under Lists in the left-hand column.

If you really enjoy your new creation, you can bump it up to the Favorites section above by hovering over it, clicking the pencil icon, and clicking Add to Favorites.

Facebook's plan for small-business ads

The woman who helped bring small businesses to Google's ad network is now on a similar mission on behalf of Facebook, beginning with an incentive plan that the social network plans to launch next week. "I think every small business should ... be using Facebook," says Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer. "We're not going to stop until all of them are using it to grow their business."

At Google, Sandberg served as vice president of global online sales and operations in a role that helped build the company's money-gushing search-advertising business.

Now, the chief operating officer at the world's largest social network wants the same for Facebook. She envisions those small businesses that joined Google's ad program spending their advertising bucks at the social-networking giant.

The advertising charge from Sandberg, a Fortune 50 listed (most powerful women in business) D.C. powerbroker, comes as the social network has swelled to some 750 million, representing an eye-popping advertising bonanza.

"My dream is really simple," said Sandberg, 42, seated near a framed graffiti rendering of co-founder Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook's headquarters here. "I think every small business should … be using Facebook ads. We're not going to stop until all of them are using it to grow their business."

Next week, Facebook will unveil a plan to get small businesses hooked. The company plans to offer free $50 Facebook advertising credits for up to 200,000 small businesses. When a person clicks on an ad, there's a set rate predetermined for that click through — 5 cents or 25 cents, for example — the advertiser has to pay. Facebook will pick up the tab for the first $50 of such ads delivered under its offer.

This may seem like small stuff, but it's the core to an ad revenue strategy that could justify a monster IPO.

"Credits like that can go a long way," she says. "For $50, most small businesses can target every single person they need to target at least once, and then they can grow their business from there."

With Facebook ads, businesses can target their paid advertising with a precision not found in most other forms of advertising.

A wedding photographer, for instance, could advertise just to women in a specific ZIP code who list on Facebook that they are engaged. A movie chain could talk just to film fans.

Sandberg estimates that of the nation's nearly 30 million small businesses, 9 million are using Facebook ads to speak to their customers, and "hundreds of thousands" are spending money on ad campaigns, as well.

While at Google, she used to say that about 50% of small businesses hadn't bothered to make a website yet — a number she says is still in the 40% range.

It's easier for small businesses to turn to Facebook, she says, because they don't have to pay for building a site, and most people can make a Facebook page, or could learn within minutes.

Sandberg says Facebook allows businesses to interact with customers and create viral marketing campaigns. "Facebook takes word-of-mouth marketing and makes it work at scale."

Greg Sterling, an analyst with Opus Research, says most small businesses resist using ad programs such as Facebook's because they're too busy running their business to devote the time.

"Facebook has multibillion (dollar) advertising potential," he says. "But right now, small businesses don't see the need for spending the money. They have their free page, and they're happy with it."

The credits will help, he says. "It gets people to at least try it."

Sarah Loveland, owner of Daddies Board Shop, a skateboard shop in Portland, Ore., began using paid advertising with Facebook ads in 2010, in hopes of growing her business more quickly. She targeted fans of extreme sports and friends of those who ride skateboards and longboards. The result: She says her business shot up, and she attributes much of it to Facebook.

Small businesses could just continue with the free business pages, "but if you really want to grow, and reach a wider community, you need to have at least 10,000 fans," says Loveland. "Once you're there, you get tons of response every time you post something. You're looked to as a valuable resource to the community, and sales really start to increase."

Sandberg says the social-media giant has created 250,000 jobs — engineers, developers and others who work on Facebook-oriented projects and related social-media jobs at companies. Facebook has 3,000 employees.

"We feel really good about our contribution," she says.

Finding Old Friends through MySpace

The MySpace community is a wonderful forum which allows members to make new friends. While most users of MySpace are aware of the opportunity to make new friends through their interactions in the community, some of them may not realize MySpace can be used to find old friends with which you have lost contact. Although most people have the best of intentions of staying in contact with friends, this often does not happen. There are a number of reasons including careers, family obligations and social commitments which prevent old friends from staying in touch. Fortunately, MySpace offers a way for these old friends to reconnect. Although there are countless ways for old friends to find each other on MySpace we will describe three methods for finding old friends on MySpace which are popularly used by members of the community.

Let Them Come to You

The easiest way to reconnect with old friends on MySpace is to let them find you. Joining MySpace and creating a website profile may be all it takes for some members to find old friends within the community. If you are looking for an old friend, chances are they often wonder about you as well. If this old friend is already a member of MySpace they may occasionally search for you by name, nickname or interests throughout the community. MySpace has a search feature which gives users a variety of options which can help them to find long lost friends.

While this may seem like a passive approach to finding old friends on MySpace it can be very effective. It is especially effective when the lost friend is already a member of the community and is actively seeking to reconnect with you as well.

Do Your Research

A more time consuming way to reconnect with an old friend on MySpace is to search for them. This process can be incredibly time consuming and possibly fruitless or it can be extremely easy and rewarding. When searching for an old friend, begin your search by entering their complete name into the search feature and using the search by name button. If your old friend is a member of MySpace and has used his full name you will find him easily. There may be multiple results especially if your friend has a common name but you will likely recognize your friend when you come across his MySpace website.

If entering your friend’s complete name does not return any useful results you can also try entering their nickname. Members who do not use their full name when registering on MySpace often use a nickname as their moniker. Even if they don’t a search of the nickname may lead you to your friend’s website if his other friends refer to him by this nickname in their comments left on his website.

Finally, you can try using keywords related to your friend’s favorite hobby in searching for an old friend. This method is likely to be the most time consuming and may return countless result of those who share the same hobby as your friend.

Make a Plea

If all else fails, in searching for an old friend on MySpace you might consider making a plea for anyone who knows him to contact you on your blog or elsewhere on your website. You may find this leads to you being contacted either by your old friend directly or by someone who knows him and can provide you with contact information. This may sound like a farfetched search option but it is actually quite plausible. Many people enjoy the anonymity the Internet offers and are careful to avoid revealing personal details about themselves online. This may make it quite difficult for you to find an old friend on MySpace but it does not mean he is not a member. If he is a member it is likely he will find a blog posting on another website inquiring about where he is. This is because humans, by nature, can be quite narcissistic and it is not unusual for members of MySpace to routinely enter their own name into the search feature on MySpace to see if anyone is talking about them in the community.

Oprah takes to Facebook to tout her network

Oprah Winfrey gave a live-streamed interview to Facebook this week to promote the Oprah Winfrey Network and her Oprah.com website. During the hour long, freewheeling chat, Winfrey turned on the charm, talking about her fondness for tequila, her fear that she was ahead of her time and her lingering desire to score a tell-all interview with O.J. Simpson.

Oprah Winfrey returned to the couch yesterday for the first time since her famed TV show ended last May. The former talk show queen appeared for an hour on Facebook with a vintage performance that included Winfrey’s advocacy of daily meditation, what her legacy might be (too soon to tell) and the one interview she’s desperate to do. For the record, it’s OJ Simpson. “I just want to hear him say he did it and I’ll be happy,” she said.

At least as important as the interview is where it took place -- online.

The decision to appear on Facebook, instead of TV, to spread her positive energy message appears to be a way for Winfrey to increase her profile among social media users and to draw people to her new cable network, OWN, and her flagging Web site, Oprah.com

The Web site has taken a downturn in visitor traffic since her afternoon TV show ended -- with unique user hits falling by about half, from 5.1 million last January to 2.4 million in July, according to comScore.

Her popular site -- which drew hits from cross-promotion on “Oprah” -- was her big contribution to the fledgling OWN Network. Discovery Communications, a 50/50 partner with Oprah, put up the channel -- the former Discovery Health -- and most of the start-up money for OWN.

Oprah had been invited to yesterday’s show by Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg, dubbed the most powerful woman in Silicon Valley. The wide-ranging live chat was conducted by Sandberg at the company’s Palo Alto, Calif. headquarters.

In the interview, Winfrey also addressed the topic of fear, saying that she “never had fear until I started [OWN].” She added that part of her fear, in finding shows that “come from a space of truth and a space of light,” stems from “the fear of whether or not I’m ahead of my time,” she said, given the popularity of “lowest common denominator.”

“I fundamentally believe that people are yearning for something more,” she said.

“But if you look at what’s on television right now, it doesn’t look that way. The fear is, I hope I’m right.”

As for being CEO of OWN, she said, “I’m very familiar with myself and what I can do, it’s very different choosing other shows and trying to feel, ‘Will this work?’

“It’s a lot harder than I ever imagined. If anybody asks if you want a network, think about that.”

Winfrey took questions from Facebook staffers as well as users. She also engaged in a lightning round of things that she prefers, picking tea over coffee, tequila over wine, the journey over the destination and thin crust over deep dish pizza.

Twitter, Bing Maintain Real Time Search

Microsoft's search engine, Bing, will continue to index Twitter updates in real time. The news was announced with a back-and-forth Twitter conversation, designed to underscore their commitment to real-time search. Bing's continued access to Twitter's data could offer the search engine a strategic edge over Google, which recently shuttered its Twitter-based social-search project.

Bing has extended its deal with Twitter to access the social company’s vast amount of data. The companies announced the deal via a conversation between the @Bing and @Twitter accounts on Twitter, a somewhat unconventional way to announce a deal whose value is likely measured in the millions.

Google had a similar deal with Twitter previously, but let it expire. It then shuttered its real-time search product. That Bing is continuing with Twitter is something that may yield the Microsoft search engine a competitive advantage over time. The two search giants rolled out deals with Twitter in near synchronization.

The deal has another side to it that is very cricitcal: it demonstrates that Bing, and Microsoft as a larger enterprise, is not ‘all-in’ with Facebook. The company has recently tightened its bonds to Facebook, a company that it owns a small stake in. That it continues to work with Twitter could be viewed as a slight to Facebook, but is likely a move that is focused on Google, and not Zuckerberg’s creation.

Even more, the note that there are ‘bigger and better’ things yet to come is a square hint at more integration. It could be that Twitter will be built, in perhaps a slightly different way, into Bing results the way that Facebook currently is. TNW Microsoft has put in a request for comment and will update this post upon hearing back from the company.

Big UK Companies Like Twitter More Than Facebook

About two-thirds of the U.K.'s top 100 companies have active Twitter profiles, while a third have established Facebook pages, according to research by Three_D. Executives say they see Twitter as more professional than Facebook, and better suited to broadcasting a branded message.

Despite Facebook being the most popular social network on the planet, it seems two thirds of the FTSE 100 prefer Twitter.

Of the top 100 companies in the UK, just 33 have their own Facebook page, compared with the 63 that are tweeting, according to research by Three_D, the social media division of Threepipe Communications.

I can imagine this is for the same reason that I send an average of nine tweets a day, yet only update my Facebook page about once every nine weeks.

Facebook friends reflect your true-life social circle, the people you have actually met and count among your peer group. Twitter “friends” vary from Lady Gaga to Boris Johnson.

Facebook is far more personal. Your Likes reflect your personality, so despite the fact that you may put condoms and tampons in your weekly shopping basket, it is unlikely you will choose to Like them on Facebook - you’d get a ribbing.

Pilar Barrio, head of social at MPG Media Contacts, says corporate accounts and those brands without cool appeal sit better on Twitter.

She says: “Twitter is half way between Facebook and LinkedIn, it’s still very professional. It’s more directed to key estate holders and influencers to share news. Twitter is more a broadcast platform than Facebook, which is more personal.”

Unilever seems to follow that rule. The company has a range of social networking profiles for its portfolio of brands but only has a corporate presence on Twitter.

@Unilever_Press launched a year ago and has about 6,200 followers. The company says it specifically chose to use Twitter instead of Facebook for this PR tool because its target audience of journalists do not tend to use Facebook for journalism.

Ellie Bowden, Unilever press office digital lead, says: “Of course, when we launched the account we knew that it wouldn’t only be followed by journalists, we’re also followed by consumers, NGOs, competitors, employees, analysts and so on. But whoever they are, we want to engage and connect with them and hopefully help build Unilever’s reputation by inspiring advocacy.

“We would never rule out using Facebook for these purposes, but for now we think that Twitter better suits our objectives.”

For companies like Unilever, Twitter allows a voice that could end up muted on Facebook. The latter’s closed platform and complex personalisation algorithms mean that company updates may not appear, bumped down the list by friends a user is most engaged with. Twitter is an open forum.

Barrio says customer service also sits more comfortably on Twitter than Facebook. @replies are personal on Twitter and only found by others if they perform a search, more akin to an e-mail - but it would be odd to have a customer service message from a FTSE 100 company appearing on a personal Facebook profile.

Some companies do have the fortune of an engaged demographic on both platforms.

Marks & Spencer uses both Twitter and Facebook to advertise new products, answer customer queries, occasionally retweet its followers and promote offers and competitions.

A Marks & Spencer spokesman says: “Both Twitter and Facebook are very important to us. We have over 27,000 Twitter followers and 303,000 Facebook fans. Both are extremely important ways of engaging with and listening to our customers.”

Facebook does have the advantage over Twitter when it comes to visuals. Marks & Spencer’s Facebook landing page is adorned with its models, while the wall is the perfect place to showcase the new range. Twitter’s largely text-based format makes this type of image share a little more difficult.

But it’s the simplicity of Twitter that is at the heart of why the FTSE 100 prefers it to Facebook.

Sign up, pick a profile picture and tweet. No techy HTML, no complex algorithms that affect visibility and no worries about whether communications with customers will leave them (or the company) with red faces.

Sometimes marketing, even for the top grossing companies, really can be that simple.

Not all Facebook Users Are Created Alike.

Older women visiting Facebook are for the most part driving the high click-through rates on Facebook ads, according to SocialCode, which examined the data along with Buddy Media, a shop that offers Facebook-focused services. Younger visitors to the site merely tend to register their "likes" for Facebook ads on the social media site, per the findings, which indicate that women 50 and older have a click-through rate that is 31.2% greater than that of visitors between the ages of 18 and 29.

A good deal of the double-digit growth rates behind display dollars this year and next is due to rising interest in Facebook ads as a medium. Clearly, Facebook’s growing member base of 750 million users is even greater than the kind of mass that advertisers are accustomed to through TV and magazines. But not all those users react to advertising the same way, as SocialCode, which along with Buddy Media, bills itself as a Facebook-focused agency, says that older users have been the ones driving high clickthrough rates on Facebook ads, whereas younger users tend not to go beyond hitting the “Like” button as an expression of brand interest.

Aside from being older, Facebook ad clickers are also mostly women, SocialCode says. Among the study’s topline findings:

—In general, women are 11 percent more likely to click on Facebook ads.

—“Like” rates are almost even for men and women; Men are actually 2.2 percent more likely to ‘Like’ a Facebook ad than women.

—For women, CTR is 31.2 percent higher for the 50+ age group versus 18-29 year olds, men only see a 16.2 percent difference between the age groups.

—Versus all age groups, 50+ women’s CTR is 22 percent higher versus a 16.4 percent difference for men.

—The oldest male segment has an 11.7 percent lower ‘Like’ rate than the youngest segment, and 9.5 percent lower “Like” rate versus all age groups. Women only see a 7.2 percent and 7.9 percent difference respectively.

SocialCode based its research on roughly 4 million “data points” across over 50 clients.

The study tends to conform to wider trends about clickthroughs. But as Facebook becomes a broader platform — the recent Miramax streaming movie rental deal with Facebook suggests that the social network will start looking more and more like a traditional media channel. But where TV networks, newspapers and magazines are trying to insert social media into their content, Facebook is placing more content on its network.

While this is probably a good thing for advertisers, for the publishers who have been hoping to get the same kind of lift through a Facebook alliance, they may already be sensing the emergence of a “frenemy” like Google (NSDQ: GOOG), as the social net attracts more premium brand dollars.

In terms of what sort of chunk Facebook ads are expected to take out of the display ad marketplace, eMarketer says the social net’s share of U.S. display ad revenues will rising to 17.7 percent in 2011, up from a 12.2 percent share last year. Overall, the researcher has projected U.S. display ad spending to jump 24.5 percent to $12.33 billion in 2011, up from $9.91 billion in 2010.