Facebook baits Twitter, Flipboard with Interest lists

Facebook has announced a new Interest lists feature, which allows users to collate their favourite people and subjects and turn the news feed into a 'personalised newspaper.'

The Interest lists functionality, which will roll out to users in the next couple of weeks, seems to take inspiration from Twitter lists and socially-themed magazines like the Flipboard app for iOS.

'Interests' are user-generated lists which bring together, for example, news from the Facebook Pages of every Premier League team or every tech news site into collective feeds.

Whenever those are lists are updated, the stories or posts will appear also in your main news feed, making it easier for you to catch-up on the news that matters to you.

People like you

"Interests feature public figures and Pages related to a particular topic, and are put together by people like you.

"The top stories from each interest appear in your news feed so you can scan interesting headlines or click through to read more posts," says Facebook software engineer Eric Faller.

When Facebook users subscribe to Interest Lists, that subject will appear on the left hand side of the page, beneath the Friends Lists functionality.

While you can already subscribe to lists created by fellow Facebookers, for a true personalised experience, it's probably best that you get in there and create your own.

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Person of interest named in search for Fla. firefighter

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Maine State Police suspect some kind of crime connected to the disappearance of a Florida firefighter, and they want to talk more with a Bangor man as the investigation intensifies.

Meanwhile, family and friends of Jerry Perdomo held out hope the 31-year-old Seminole County, Fla., firefighter will turn up. He's been missing since Feb. 16.

"We just want him to come home," Tonya Perdomo, wife of the missing man, told The Associated Press from her home in Orange City, Fla.

In Maine, state Public Safety Department spokesman Stephen McCausland said investigators have spent two days gathering evidence at a house in the Waldo County town of Jackson that's owned by the father of Daniel Porter, 24, of Bangor. Police believe the house is the last place Perdomo was seen. Evidence has been sent to the state police crime lab in Augusta.

Porter is "a person of interest" in the case, said the spokesman.

McCausland also said police interviewed Porter and Porter's 25-year-old girlfriend, Cheyanne Nowak, after detectives located them in Connecticut during the past week. The two have since returned to Maine.

Investigators also have moved three vehicles involved in the case to the crime lab. They include a rental car Perdomo had been operating, which was found in the parking lot of the Bangor Wal-Mart; a car that had been owned by Porter and was left behind at an Oakland dealership, and a new car bought by Porter and Nowak.

"The connection between Perdomo, Porter and Nowak, we're still trying to piece together," said McCausland. Perdomo made frequent trips to Maine, he said. A woman claiming to be Perdomo's girlfriend has come forward to police, but McCausland did not have her name.

Police also confirmed they searched a trash container at the Hannaford supermarket in Bangor, near Wal-Mart.

Perdomo's wife described the father of 3- and 10-year-old children as "a dedicated dad. He helps people out a lot."

"He was always doing something for somebody," said Tonya Perdomo. "He's very sociable. He was in the service and knows a lot of people."

Asked if it would be unusual for Perdomo to drive to Maine from Florida, his wife said, "He had friends from all over so it wouldn't be unusual for him to go out of town." Tonya Perdomo also thanked firefighters, neighbors and others who have been helping the family since her husband's disappearance.

Chris Learch, Perdomo's brother-in-law, was in Maine putting up posters with Perdomo's picture in the Bangor area.

"We're just going to keep doing it, going to keep on going until we find Jerry and bring him home," Learch told WMTW-TV in Portland.

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