The secret to an enjoyable social networking experience is the ability to properly manage your content.  Better content management control equals a better experience.  Despite the fact that it originated from a user-unfriendly design that was aimed at college kids looking to poke (online or off) each other, Facebook finally seems to get this, and they are constantly introducing new features that will serve both Facebook’s purpose (internet domination) and ours (a better user experience).

As I was dragged, typing and clicking, onto Facebook (Friend me if we are), the first thing that struck me was the sheer volume of posts relating to Farmville and other similar nonsense.  For a while I was amazed at the amount of gibberish that crossed my screen.  It was almost as chaotic as Twitter (Follow me), except that nothing else can be that chaotic.

Facebook filters were the first and biggest step in my Facebook content management initiative.  In one or two clicks I can forever rid my stream of Farmville and all sorts of other so-called games that inspire so many seemingly sane people to obsessively hunt for and/or give away livestock and implements (or whatever one does in Farmville) while the developers of Farmville undoubtedly pinch themselves repetitively on their way to the bank.

Filters helped me avoid much of the bad stuff, but I wanted a way to find the good stuff.  Like most people, my list of Facebook “Friends” spans various segments of my real life.  I have hometown friends, college friends, local friends, and tech friends.  Lists allow us to separate content into buckets of people, but separating content by person doesn’t work very well.   For example, if one of my college friends says something interesting about a tech topic, I won’t see it if I’m reading my “Tech” list.

We needed a way to manage content by topic.  The recently released Facebook Groups feature gives us this.  It’s really early, but I think Facebook has hit a homerun with Groups.  Here’s why.

They Are Topic Based and Deeper

As noted above, segmenting your Facebook stream into buckets of people is not an elegant solution.  Groups, at least the ones I am involved in so far, are generally topic based.  My  favorite Group so far is a tech group, set up by one of my Facebook friends.  It allows me to quickly consume lots of good, non-spammy content written by people who are invested in the topic.  Additionally, it allows me to share information and interact with a lot of people who share the interest but are not my Facebook “Friends.”  As long as the Groups can be properly managed (more on that below), I think Groups will quickly become the go-to place to discuss topics on Facebook.

Being topic based also helps reduce the amount of other content which, while not quite Farmville-stupid, isn’t interesting to me.   I’m primarily talking about party-spoon-fed political hate-regurgitation (I’m really bored with all the Obama-bashing) and supposedly, but not really, uplifting quotes.  If I can tune my Facebook content like a TV channel, my Facebook experience will be more efficient and more enjoyable.

All of this makes me think Groups will very quickly become the default Facebook hangout for most people.

In fact, I think Groups will eventually become the backbone of Facebook, content-wise, design-wise and revenue-wise.  Think about what topic-based Group pages will mean for advertisers.  Sounds a little Google-like, huh?

There’s No Imported Content Which Leads to More Interaction

Unlike my main Facebook stream, where many people import content they create other places (such as Twitter), all of the content in Facebook Groups originates from within the group.  I have actually filtered out real-world friends on my main Facebook stream because so much of their content is imported that they don’t even see Comments and stuff.  If we can’t talk, then all you’re really doing is spamming me.  That is much less of a concern within Groups.

Meaningful interaction is the primary mover for much of the internet herd.  And it is about 100 times better in the main Facebook stream than on Twitter, and it’s about 10 times better in Facebook Groups than in the general Facebook stream.  That’s a lot.  Of content, interaction, and potential ad dollars.

There is the Potential for Proper Curation

Over time Facebook is going to have to give Group administrators a way to police members and probably even membership.  Years of online community building has taught me that there will be a segment of any group (lower or upper case) who only wants to harass and/or spam.  This is an absolute.  It will, at least initially, be less of a problem in “closed” Groups, like the tech group I am spending a lot of time reading, but it will be an issue for all Groups.  Probably sooner than later.

Note that I said “proper” curation.  The one thing that will drive me away from Groups and possibly Facebook as a whole is if Groups become like merit badges, and we end up in some new Gatekeeper controversy.  Proper curation should toss troublemakers out, but not serve as an implement of exclusion.

Done correctly, however, Facebook Groups can increase the quality of content geometrically.  Quality content, properly managed is the holy grail of online communities.

Facebook has some work to do, but I think Groups are going to be huge.

And About Google.Me (or Leave My Email Alone)

As a brief aside, the only other platform that has the potential to create this sort of curated interaction is Google Reader.  It’s too bad Google has largely abandoned Google Reader in its now redundant effort to create a content management tool inside of Gmail (which was obviously done to co-opt the huge Gmail user base).  I’m so in love with Chrome, that I’d try like hell to support any sane attempt by Google at social networking, but I am not optimistic that Google is going to present us with anything compelling.  My one hope (and remember this) is that Google.Me ends up embedded in Chrome (both the browser and the OS) instead of Gmail.  By itself, that won’t guarantee success, but it would be enough to make me take a long look.  And to pull for them.

I’m a little punch drunk and heart sore after reading another example of narcissism, hatred and polarization in America***.  The lack of self-awareness and empathy in this country is epic, and saddening.  We need to relearn logic and civility.  We need less hate and more love.  Less anger and more kindness.  It sounds trite, but it is absolutely the truth.

Which leads me to Facebook (if we are, “Friend” me).  I have learned to live with Facebook’s nonsensical organizational and navigational structure in the name of meaningful and efficient social interaction.  Unlike Twitter, which I completely don’t get, there is actual social interaction to be had via Facebook, largely because the non-nerds have embraced it.  This is good.  We also need less nerdity, but that’s a topic for another day.

One of the reasons people flock to Facebook is because Facebook imposes some rules that, at least in theory, improve the experience.  In general, I agree with this.  But Facebook’s sense of etiquette is odd, in at least two ways.

We Need a “Dislike” Button

Why in the world isn’t there a native “Dislike” button for Facebook posts?  Is it really a breach of etiquette to disagree with something?  Are we a nation of sissies or what?  How in the world can you even have a conversation when the only possible responses are to say yes or give a sermon?

Like our polarizing society at large, there are a lot of haters on Facebook.  Much of the hate is politics based.  I haven’t been excited about politics since Jimmy Carter’s acceptance speech (what a great night that was) at the 1976 Democratic Convention, so I generally ignore political rants.

What my conscience won’t let me ignore is thinly disguised racism or hate masquerading as patriotism.  There are a lot of what, at first glance, look like religious and patriotic gestures on Facebook that are actually the opposite of both.  I badly need the ability to succinctly register my disapproval of that sort of thing.  A “Dislike” button would do that.  Without one, I have to either ignore something I find offensive or write a Comment expressing my disagreement.  Writing a Comment is much more confrontational than simply “Disliking” something.  Plus, having “Likes” and “Dislikes” would allow people to quickly gauge group sentiment on things.

The absence of a “Dislike” button, which seems to be an attempt to encourage civility, actually has the opposite effect.  We need a “Dislike” button.  Etiquette demands it.

It’s OK Not to Be Friends

Facebook seems to think that we all have really fragile karmas.  Otherwise, why wouldn’t there be an option to say say “No” to a “Friend” request?  Sure, you can now say “Not Now,” but as TechSpot points out, this results in the bizarre situation in which the rejecting person’s public posts show up in the rejected person’s stream.  You don’t have to suffer the horror of someone saying no, but you get to be constantly reminded that they did.  Crazy, no?

I recently sent a “Friend” request to Craig Newmark.  He and I are by no means real world friends, but we have emailed a few times over the years, and have a lot of mutual friends.  I thought he was getting unduly crapped on over the Craigslist thing, and decided to reach out.  Anyway, he didn’t accept my request, which is perfectly fine.  The problem was that, because I sent a “Friend” request to him, his public posts started showing up on my Facebook wall.  Since he and I are not Facebook “Friends,” I was not able to comment on those posts or join in the conversation.  In effect, I was being excluded from conversations on my own Facebook wall.  Since there is, for reasons that escape me, no easy way to withdraw a “Friend” request, I had to block Craig and then un-block him, just to go back to square one.  This is perfectly illogical and unnecessary.

It would be so much more efficient- and so much less offensive for everyone involved- if someone could just say no to a “Friend” request, and have the requesting person notified.  If your sense of self-worth is dependent on whether someone accepts your Facebook “Friend” request, maybe you should step away from the computer.  Heck, I’ve had lifelong real world friends un-“Friend” me, and I still manage to get up and live my life every day.

*** For the record, I largely agree with the points Mike is making, if not the way he chose to make them.  Having said that, I also think our government and economy is generally set up to favor the super-rich over everyone else, and if there is a tax increase (which would be fine if used for the right purposes), the super-rich will figure out a way to avoid or recoup much of their losses, in one way or another at the expense of the rest of us.  John Scalzi, author of one of my favorite books, has the best take on this latest brouhaha.