We are living in an age where Facebook is among the most popular sites on the net and it always has something new to offer its users, which they believe shall heighten its popularity over other similar sites. The “subscribe” button has been newly launched by Facebook, which it believes will serve myriad purposes. With this button, users can subscribe to their favorite persons like authors, actors, politicians and even business tycoons.
What it allows – This new button will allow Facebook users to establish a one sided connection with other profiles or websites, through their Facebook profile. It functions and works like the ‘follow’ button of Twitter and allows you to view updates of the subscribed account, without sharing your account. Furthermore, in this option, one need not wait for the other person’s approval of sharing the account (like confirming ‘friend request’ on Facebook) and all the personal information remains unrevealed.
This ‘subscribe’ button has a few advantages as well. They are listed below -
1. Get more subscribers – This subscription system has been extended to the Comments Box plug-in, which enables blogs and website owners to incorporate a Facebook based commentary system on their sites and web pages. This feature shall also allow the comment posters to get more subscribers.
2. Get all Updates – Very similar to the ‘like’ button of Facebook, which allowed creating a bookmark of any webpage on somebody’s social networking account, this ‘subscribe’ button also offers web publishers to add the content of their fans and readers on Facebook. With this subscription system, every post or update made by an author or the user will be shared with the subscriber and he or she can view it with their news feed.
3. “Subscribe” vs. “Follow” – Since, this new ‘subscribe’ button of Facebook is largely similar to the ‘follow’ button of Twitter, and acts and functions in a similar manner; it is expected it will heighten rivalry between the two sites. However, the ‘subscribe’ button has added advantages over the ‘follow’ button of Twitter; with the follow button you can get connected with only one user but the ‘subscribe’ button can link you up to a chain of users.
4. Methods of Adding – There are three different ways of adding this subscribe button of Facebook: firstly, with the ad of an extended Facebook markup language code; secondly, through HTML 5-compliant markup, and finally, with an iframe. For further reference, one can consult the help centre of Facebook.
5. Reading of Journals and Newspapers – Although, this ‘subscribe’ button is primarily designed to establish a one sided connection with your admired personality – writer, film star, politician, and so on, it has more functions to serve as well. It brings good news for publishers and journalists as readers can now read the latest version of journals or newspapers with this subscription system.
6. Generation of More Traffic – Due to the viral quality of this ‘subscribe’ button, more traffic is generated on the webpage which is a good feature for promotional activities.
Thus, it is evident that this latest initiative of Facebook is a path-breaking activity in the field of social networking. It has myriad purposes to serve, starting from viewing updates of favorite personalities to reading latest articles from publishers and journalists to promoting brands and services by generating traffic.
It thus, is the latest gift in this Christmas from Facebook!
Image Credits: via FactoryJoe on Flickr
