What is the Facebook Subscribe Button?
Before we answer the above question. let’s discuss what the Facebook Subscribe button is.
The Facebook Subscribe button is designed to allow the Facebook user to choose what can be viewed in its own news feeds. Up until now, users were limited only to those with whom they were Facebook friends, and even then, they couldn’t really choose which friend they wanted to hear from the most. Now, according to Facebook’s blog, with the Facebook Subscribe button, you will be able to do the following:
- Choose what you see from people in News Feed
- Hear from people, even if you’re not friends
- Let people hear from you, even if you’re not friends
You’re already getting your friends’ posts in News Feed. With the Subscribed button, you can choose how much you see from them:
- All updates: Everything your friend posts
- Most updates: The amount you’d normally see
- Important updates only: Just highlights, like a new job or move
You can also decide what types of updates you see. For example, you could see just photos from one friend, no stories about games from another, and nothing at all from someone else. https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150280039742131
Some of the initial reaction from people is both positive and negative. On the positive side, people see Facebook as providing more choices to its users and, like Twitter, allowing Facebook to be used for obtaining news articles or quotes from their favorite celebrities. But not everyone sees this new Facebook Subscribe button as a great improvement.
Facebook Subscribe Button | A break from their social contract?
Dan Rowinsk from www.readwriteweb.com/ states the following about the Facebook Subscribe button and how it affects the original Facebook goal:
Facebook evolved around the notion of “balanced following.” You couldn’t be friends with me unless I was a friend to you. At the start, Facebook held tight to that rule. As time went on, that started to evolve and erode where you could see updates of people you had sent a request to even if they had not yet responded. Later, Facebook instituted sharing options where “friends of friends” and such could see your posts if you so chose.
Now the Facebook Subscribe button changes everything.
Facebook is now taking the fundamental nature of “friending” and changing it. On one hand, it brings it much closer to how Twitter and Google Plus work. On the other, it is a distinct departure from how the site was founded. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/does_facebooks_subscribe_button_betray_what_the_co.php
What is your opinion of the new Facebook Subscribe button? Is it a betrayal of what Facebook was built on or a necessary feature to keep the news feed relevant and competitive against the likes of Google Plus and Twitter?