Are you using Facebook's Interest Lists?

Brands, people, ads, celebs, blogs, friends, blah, blah, blah.

There's so much going on in the Facebook News Feed these days, it's difficult to keep track of the posts and people you actually care about.

Social reader apps are auto-posting news articles, friends are writing yawn-inducing status updates, and you're left trying to filter out the good content.

Introduced in March, Facebook Interest Lists offer a way to create and subscribe to lists of users who post about the same topics, allowing you isolate posts about interests like recipes, fashion, sports, or tech news.

Setting up your Interest Lists is easy. In the left side bar of the home page, under Interests click "Add Interests..." You then have two options: subscribe the any of the prepopulated Interest Lists, or create your own by clicking Create List at the top.

If you choose to create your own list, a window will open, allowing you to add friends, brands, or public figured to your list even if you don't currently subscribe to them.

Once you've created or subscribed to a number of Interest Lists, they'll appear to the left of the News Feed. When you click one, only the posts from the people on that list will appear. Posts from users on your Interest Lists will also appear in your general News Feed.

If you'd like quicker access to a list, add it to your Favorites by hovering over the name, clicking the pencil, and selecting "Add to favorites." Clicking the pencil also gives you the option to remove the list entirely.
Credit: Screenshot by Sharon Vaknin/CNET)

With the ever-increasing noise on Facebook, features like friend lists and interest lists will become more valuable to the everyday viewer, making Facebook as much of a news consumption platform as it is a social network.

Despite the utility of the Interest Lists feature, the number of subscribers to Facebook's suggested lists tell us the feature hasn't yet gained traction with most users. If this doesn't change, Facebook might decide to make a big push for the Interest Lists feature. (After all, it allows them to serve you better targeted advertisements.)

Now that Interest Lists have been here for a while, are you using them? Or is this the first time you noticed the feature? Chime in with a comment below.