On the back of the improvements to its Friend lists, e-mail notifications and privacy overhaul, Facebook has added a “Subscribe” button.
If there was any doubt before, the latest update confirms Facebook is gunning for its competitors. The subscribe feature allows users to essentially “follow” anyone on Facebook who they are not friends with - not dissimilar to Twitter and Google+.
“Until now, it hasn't been easy to choose exactly what you see in your News Feed,” says Facebook developer Zach Rait.
“You also couldn't hear directly from people you're interested in but don't know personally - like journalists, artists and political figures.”
The subscribe button will be rolled out to all users within the next few days, and it will appear on profiles (next to the “Message” button). When clicking on the subscribe button, users can choose what types of updates they want to see from people and friends in their News Feed.
So while it provides the option to customise the types of posts one sees from friends (such as all updates, most updates or important updates only), it also allows users to follow people who aren't close friends or even acquaintances.
Using the Subscribe button to follow people one isn't friends with, will mean that only their public posts will appear directly in the News Feed.
To get followers on Facebook, users have to opt-in to allow a public Subscribe button to appear on their profile, so the feature is optional.
Facebook tweets?
While the ability to follow users in a non-reciprocal relationship is the backbone of Twitter, it is also a feature of Google+. Twitter may, however, have cause for concern, since Facebook is also about to launch a feature that will allow users to post to Twitter directly from Facebook.
www.facebook.com/twitter it is clear that users will soon be able to post to Twitter directly from Facebook pages.
“Now share anything with fans and followers, all from one place,” says Facebook on the site. It appears as if Page owners can choose between cross-posting everything they publish, or selecting certain types of posts to feed to Twitter.
TechCrunch reports that Facebook has confirmed the feature will become available within the next week. Twitter is yet to comment.
Competition in the social networking space has heated up considerably this year, with sites becoming increasingly protective of their APIs. Facebook throttled a Facebook Friend Exporter feature to prevent easy crossover to Google+, while Google's real-time search contract with Twitter expired, and Twitter and LinkedIn blocked certain Facebook apps.
Historically, the relationship between the two sites has not always been friendly, and Twitter turned down an offer from Facebook to buy it out in 2008.
Last year, Facebook also blocked Twitter from adding a feature that allowed users to find and connect with their Facebook friends on the micro-blogging site.
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