I was browsing my Facebook, account today and got some good information from my friend, Lyn Scalzitti.  She pointed me to a web page entitled "How To Set Your Facebook News Feed And Wall Settings."  Needless to say, the page is a 101 on getting beyond the basics of Facebook.  Check out:

www.thefacebookinsider.com/2009/10/how-to-set-your-facebook-news-feed-and-wall-settings

The Face Book Insider 

Has so many things to offer.  The biggest thing for me was to control what comes down on my wall. 

Today Facebook released their new homepage design and while it can be beneficial for those just wanting updates from close friends and family, it is not so friendly for those who have a large number of regularly updating friends.

One major beef that many are having already is the automatic posting onto your news feed of almost everything you do - that now ALSO appears in the news feed of all your friends.

I don't know about you, but I really don't need to know who became friends with who, and other people definitely do not need to know who I suddenly became friends with!

If you are want to stop these updates from posting to everyone's news feed, follow these few simple steps:

Select the Privacy Settings link from your Settings Menu

Select The News Feed & Wall link

Uncheck each of the boxes that automatically post to your news feed, wall and your friends news feed.

You may have also noticed that you have "Live Feed" and "News Feed" links at the top of your homepage. The difference between the two at this point is all jumbled.

However, your Live Feed may be blocking much of want you actually WANT to see. Scroll down to the bottom of your Live Feed page and click on Edit Options:

NOTE: If you have never put a friend or application on HIDE, you will NOT see the Edit Options link at the bottom of your page. Simply pick someone, click on the HIDE button that will appear in the top right corner of their update, then unhide by clicking the "x" beside their name in the steps below.

Make note of the line "Live Feed automatically determines which friends to include based on who Facebook thinks you want to hear from most." I am a little unsure as to how Facebook thinks they know me and my friends and family so well, but....

Also, if you have more than 250 friends and family, you will see that Facebook either selectively, or randomly (we are not sure which yet), cuts them off at 250. You will want to change this number to accommodate your friends total, as shown below. We recommend putting it up to 5000.

Following the above steps will help reduce the amount of mumbo jumbo appearing everywhere. I am sure Facebook felt the split feed was a step in the right direction of reducing clutter for some, but it may have slightly backfired on them at this point...

UPDATE: Some people seem to be experiencing a problem seeing the correct Edit Options pop up when they are trying to change the number of friends shown on their Live Feed. We have found a solution, albeit a goofy one, but it works.

If you do not see the correct pop up as shown above, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you are on the Live Feed tab.
2. If the pop up is only a list of friends, close it.
3. Switch to News Feed.
4. Click the Edit Options link at the bottom of the News Feed, then close it.
5. Switch back to Live Feed
6. Now when you click the Edit Options link again, it should be the correct window.

UPDATE #2

We would appreciate everyone sharing this page with their Facebook friends to help spread the solution around. Thanks guys!!