Gabi Review

Many of us have hundreds and sometimes thousands of friends on Facebook. Sometimes it can be hard to sort through all of the junk posts we don't care about: game notifications, fake events, spam, and more. Gabi provides a way to sort through Facebook with all kinds of filters to present a beautiful represenation of what users really care about. I found the filtering in Gabi to be incredibly useful. It almost makes me want to start using Facebook more often.

The app is split into three colored coded sections: newest (orange), my best (brown/beige), and friends (blue). All three sections start off blank and allow the users to decide which subsections to add. For example, users can go to the "newest" section and tap the plus sign. Then, they will be presented with a series of options of "new" items to see (photos, statuses, etc). Next, users are asked whether they want the items that are most "talked about" or most "liked." For "talked about," items will be sorted by the most commented. "Liked," of course, sorts by the most liked. Using the various options, users can get some awesome information. For example, I can use the "friends" sections with subcategories "interests" and "TV shows" to get a list of the TV shows that are most "liked" by my friends. Or if I'm interested in my own social presence, I can use "my best" and subcategories "statuses" and "liked" or "talked about" to find out what things I've said that generated the most buzz. To add even more customization, the app allows all of these lists to be filtered by time: "today," "week," or "anytime."

There's also a sharing feature. Any of these filtered lists can be shared over Facebook with a grid of pictures with for the listed items and a personalized comment. My only problems with this feature is that the pictures don't always show the full items (statuses, events, etc) and the personalized comment has a 40 character limit. This isn't Twitter! Don't give me a limit...especially a limit one-third the size of Twitter's.

While some of the information can be incredibly useful, the app also provides me with loads of useless information that's both humorous and sad. For example, due to the "most popular events" feature, I now know that many of my Facebook friends are planning on attending the year 2013. I find it quite annoying when people make events that obviously aren't events; it causes clutter and makes it hard to find events I actually want to attend. I also now know that many of my friends are planning on attending the zombie apocolypse. Sure you are...

There's really nothing wrong with Gabi. It's a beautifully-designed visual representation of Facebook with some truly awesome and useful ways to filter the overload of information we're bombarded with on a daily basis. It's also private. Information doesn't get sent to servers owned by the developer. All of the filtering is done within the app. And with the privacy concerns that often pop up with both apps and Facebook, that's a reassuring feature.

Gabi is only $0.99, so there's nothing stopping anyone from giving it a go. Perhaps it will almost make you want to use Facebook more too.