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How to Use Facebook’s New Lifestreaming Features

Longtime users of the Facebook platform have seen how applications from popular web services like Twitter can add tremendous value to the News Feed and Mini Feed features. In fact, one could argue that News Feed was the inspiration for lifestreaming tools like Tumblr and FriendFeed.

Now, it appears that the inspiration flows two ways. Facebook announced today that they would begin allowing users to import Mini Feed stories from Flickr, Picasa, Yelp and del.icio.us.

To use the new service, go to your profile and look at the Mini Feed section. Look for the new “import” link at the top, right corner of the Mini Feed profile box. Then, follow the instructions to import your activity into Facebook.  No word on how soon users will be able to import other activity, but other promised services include Digg.

I wonder how fast these updates will become a part of the site, and whether MySpace profile updates and other information will be included in the lifestream.

Also, why is Facebook announcing a feature associated with the Feed when the main feature is clearly broken at the moment? I wonder if this feature addition is the culprit for the massive News Feed slowdown.

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