Yesterday afternoon, Facebook announced the addition of Facebook Subscribe. This new feature will give users the ability to control what they see in their News Feed as well as receive and share information with people who are not their Facebook friends.
In order to control the information that you would like to see in your News Feed, simply choose if you want to receive all updates, most updates, or only important updates from your friends. In addition, you can choose to see only certain types of updates (i.e. photos) from a specific friend. The use of the “Subscribe” button is entirely optional; unless you choose to utilize this new feature, your News Feed will remain unchanged.
If your account has a Facebook Subscribe button, it allows you to share public updates with people who subscribe to you even if they are not your friends. To add a Facebook Subscribe button to your account, simply visit the Facebook Subscriptions page and click “Allow Subscribers.” After you enable the Subscribe button, you will be able to see who subscribes to you and change settings related to comments and notifications.
In addition to having your own subscribers, you can subscribe to actors, singers, sports stars, politicians, or anyone else with a Subscribe button. Once you click the Subscribe button, you will receive public updates from that person in your News Feed. You will have control over the number and type of updates you receive.
When the Facebook Director of Product Naomi Gleit was asked how Facebook Subscribe was different than following someone on Twitter, she said:
“I think the Subscribe button has a lot of features and granular options. It’s more about getting updates in your existing News Feed.”
Although the Facebook Subscribe button has some similarities to Twitter and its features, the ability to control the updates that appear in the News Feed differentiates Facebook Subscribe from Twitter.
[Sources: TechCrunch, Facebook Blog, & Facebook Subscriptions]
