We recently looked at some new friend list options Facebook was testing, and it appears that the testing period is now over, as Facebook has officially announced the new features.

These include: smart lists, close friends and acquaintances lists and better suggestions. Smart lists are created automatically and stay up to date, based on profile info friends have in common with you like work, school, family and city. The close friends and acquaintances lists allow users to see their best friends’ photos and posts in one place, and see less from people you’re not as close to.

These features, along with other recent sharing changes made by Facebook could be compared to the Circles feature of Google+ in the sense that they give users much more control over who their feeds and who they’re sharing what with.

The lists are optional, and you don’t have to use them if you don’t want to. You can add and remove friends manually to make lists better reflect what you want to see.

“We provide suggestions for your smart lists, Close Friends, Acquaintances, and your own lists, making them easier to create and update,” says Facebook’s Blake Ross. “When you add someone as a friend or confirm a friendship request, you’ll be able to add the friend to any of your existing lists.”

“Each of your lists has its own News Feed, where you can see just the photos, status updates and other posts from the people on the list. To view list News Feeds, look for the Lists section on the left side of your homepage and click the list you want to see.”
 
“Whenever you feel like sharing something with a narrower set of friends, simply use the dropdown audience selector in the sharing tool and pick one of your lists.”

Facebook’s f8 developer conference takes place later this month. The company is expected to launch a music product, among other things. It will be interesting to see if any more announcements related to these new features are made. Business Insider thinks they may even get into concert ticketing.

Facebook says the new features will be available to all this week.

Separately, Facebook also announced that it’s testing “a feature for people who are very active on Facebook and receive lots of email notifications” where they’ll get a new summary email and turn off most individual email notifications. Users will be able to turn them back on if they want.