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How to de-clutter your Facebook account, ready for 2011

Posted: 02 Jan 2011 04:00 AM PST

Facebook is the most popular social networking tool around. It’s also the best for stalking friends old and new. But with more and more folk signing up, it can all get a bit too much for those that prefer a bit of privacy. And then there’s the constant updates. Oh the updates! What you need is a Facebook detox. Read on for our guide to de-cluttering your Facebook account, ready for 2011.

Know who your friends are, ditch those who aren’t
Let’s be honest here. No matter what your Facebook account tells you, you do not have over 500 friends. Do you really need to add someone you’ve no intention of contacting ever again? If so, don’t complain when their tenth Facebook status of the day makes you feel like spitting blood. It’s your own fault. Don’t add them in the first place. If you have, it’s time for a clean up.

Make some Friends lists
With so many acquaintances on Facebook it can be difficult to see what your closest friends are up to on Facebook. Creating Friends lists lets you access only the feeds generated by those you want to hear from most in one place without the clutter from ‘friends’ you haven’t spoken to in years. To create a list go to Account, click on Edit Friends, then hit the Create a list button above your friends list. Now simply click on the friends you’d like to include that list, and give a name to said list. You can give them different names such as friends, work colleagues or whatever else you like.

Operation Unlike
There’s a Facebook Page and group for everything these days. Sausage roll vs Cheryl Cole anyone? But do you really care if just under a million more bored Facebookers such as yourself flip over their pillow to get to the cold side? You’re just making yourself look simple. There’s probably a group about people who like to breath. Hit that unlike button and join something productive. *Cough* Electricpig Fan Page *cough*.

Turn off notifications
It’s perhaps a tad extreme, and is actually more about de-cluterring your Facebook experience as a whole, but you can turn off email notifications for almost anything on Facebook. Just click on Account, then click on the Notifications tab that appears. From here you can stop receiving notifications when someone has a birthday, when someone tags you, comments on a photo after you have done so, invites you to an event you’d never go to and more. Take your pick for Facebook bliss.

Conceal the clutter
You see all those boring news updates clogging up your News Feed? They don’t have to be there. Hide them. You can choose to get rid of individual posts, or hide all posts from a person or even applications such as Facebook Places. How do you do it? While in your news feed, hover per any status update, photo or application story. A cross should appear just to the right. Click on it and you’ll be given the options “Hide this post”and “Hide all by [name of person].” What should result is a more relevant News Feed with less clutter.

Got any more tips to help your fellow readers de-clutter their Facebook accounts? Let us know in the comments section below.

Five tech startups to watch in 2011

Posted: 02 Jan 2011 01:00 AM PST

They’re the next big things and then the most recent flop: only some will be here to stay. But here’s five tech startups we’ve watched germinate in 2010, and who are on track for bigger things next year, from online writing clubs to decentralised social networks and the next step in location based gaming. Click through for the five startups you should keep in your sights in 2011.

Diaspora
Diaspora spent the first half of the year on Kickstarter gathering funds, where it earned itself $200k from backers (the target was $10k). The developers say that they want to upend the current state of privacy online with Diaspora: "We believe that privacy and connectedness do not have to be mutually exclusive. With Diaspora, we are reclaiming our data, securing our social connections, and making it easy to share on your own terms. We think we can replace today’s centralised social web with a more secure and convenient decentralised network." It's now in alpha, but you have to sign up for an invite.
Sign up for a Diaspora invite

Grapple
Grapple will be celebrating its first birthday in 2011, and in its first year it’s already picked up big clients like BT, Sony Pictures and Xbox. Grapple is built on some nifty Canadian technology that makes it quicker and easier to build cross-platform apps. Grapple saw the opportunity, bought the patent, and started the company. Already they've opened up 30 different offices worldwide, and there'll be big things once Grapple starts popping out some of its bigger projects.
Take a look at what Grapple does

Quilliant
Quilliant was started by Electricpig co-conspirator Ben Oakshott and his partner Chris Vannozzi last year. It's an online community for writers, powered by writers, where wordsmiths of every persuasion can connect, support and encourage one another. It's focused on forging links between writers with similar styles, so that a horror writer gives pointers on your horror writing, for instance. You can also follow other writers, and the more people like your writing, the more followers you have, and the more prominent you are, thus drawing the attention of publishers and bringing you one step closer to that elusive publishing deal.
Sign up for Quilliant

SCVNGR
Founded by 21 year old Seth Priebatsch, SCVNGR is a location-based game with a twist. It's "a game about going places, doing challenges and earning points". It sounds a lot like existing location based games Foursquare and Gowalla, but it’s about more than just checking in: the idea is gamification: adding a game layer onto the whole world. As well as checking in, businesses and other organisations can play and build by adding gaming elements to their locations, offering rewards and challenges for players.
Play SCVNGR

Shuffler.fm
Shuffler.fm turns music blogs into custom built radio. It's basically an RSS reader on the back, which extracts posts and permalinks to the songs posted by music blogs. Last.fm provide the genre classifications and from that Shuffler takes you on a whistlestop tour of the genre you want to hear, from blog to blog, track by track.
Listen with Shuffler.fm

What startup will you be watching in 2011? Drop us a line in the comments with your tip!