Love it or hate it the new Facebook has certainly polarised social media discussions. This week  Facebook announced a number of changes designed to soothe the  many concerns Facebook  users  had voiced about the homepage re-design.

Over the last day or so these improvements have been gradually added to homepages.  Initial feedback from users is favourable and although Facebook will attribute this to the changes they have made  - perhaps it is also partly due to Facebook users  feeling less shellshocked second time around.

Ok,  so what has Facebook included in Version 2?  

Custom Friend Lists
As you know these are now front and center, a bit hard to miss but positioned perfectly if you know how to really take advantage of them. 

Dont be afraid to make your own lists. You can create new lists from the “Create” link at the bottom of your list of friend groups on the left side of the Facebook homepage.  You might make several specific lists,  for instance  “People I  Know”, “People I Work With”, ” People I Went to College With” – you get the idea.

Once you have made your lists you can then  make any of these groups your default,  so it’s what comes up every time you open Facebook. How do you do that?  You simply  just drag the list you want as  the default to the top of the list of groups on the left of your homepage.

Heres the inside scoop, if you don’t do this, Facebook will just default to “News Feed,” which shows updates from everyone you’re friends with.

Fiddling With  Friends Lists
Version 2  makes it easy to  tweak your friends lists at any time. Ok, so how do you do this?  Its so  easy  you don’t even need to leave the page. Simply click the little icon next to the Group name, select the list you’d like to add someone to, and then start typing in their name. This is where Facebook Version 2 will help you out – it auto-detects who you might be trying to add.

Hide Those Annoying Application  Notifications
You were probably one of the many,  many Facebook users who found the influx of information from third-party apps like Flickr, YouTube and Friend Feed ultra annoying.  Guess what ?  Facebook were listening. With the homepage improvements, you can now hide people from your feed, and  specific application notifications. How do you do this? From the hide drop downbox on the right handside of the screen choose to hide either the person or the application notification.

Wait There’s More…
Facebook has also moved “Requests” back to the top right of your homepage. This creates more real estate for friend updates above the fold, which is pretty nice once you’ve tweaked the other settings.

What Do You Think?
Now that Facebook Version 2 is live, its time for Facebook users to give their feedback. They certainly weren’t shy in providing feedback for Facebook Version 1. Whats  your opinion?