What does the order of friends on the new facebook profile mean?

[therunningdancer]

I've noticed on the new Facebook profile that the list of ~10 friends underneath my profile picture contains a lot of the same people most of the time. Most of them are close friends but a few are people I don't talk to often (an ex-boyfriend from months and months ago; acquaintances from university that I was never close with to begin with.)

I'm just curious. Is there a method to this organizational madness, or are these people just selected at random? And why do some of them stay on the list/visible on my profile at all time?

[Emily]

you can actually set who to appear in your profile by editing in the profile page

the people that appear are by default in random order

[Rom Cartridge]

According to Facebook:

“Friends who you publicly interact with the most appear first on your profile. Examples of public interactions include Wall posts, comments and mutually attended events — Facebook will never show friends based on whose profiles you choose to view or who you interact with over messages and chat.”