Starting back on September 14th, Facebook is offering what is called a Twitter-like option that will allow fellow Facebook users to “subscribe” to an account rather than needing to “like” a page or become “friends” with an entity. So where is it? How do you find it? Bear with me but a moment as I lead up to why you may now have the ability to follow Facebook accounts:
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A Flashback!
Do you remember during the massive growth days of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer? They would release a new version of IE and then someone would improve on it. Then suddenly the next rendition of MS’s browser would either have a similar function or just buy up the smaller company and add their functionality to their own. (Very Borg-like actually. Huh.) A prime example would be tabs, which FireFox sported long before IE started deploying them.
Much like when smaller websites have great ideas but then those ideas get sucked up by the larger sites who dwarf them… and you’ll never know. On the bright side… in the long run everyone wins. Well, most everyone.
But right now, the big change at Facebook is that they seem to be following suit in the footsteps of Twitter, making their own follow mode available through their application. Or this could be a response to Google+ and how it’s been operating.
Facebook is getting it from all sides these days.
Can Facebook Pull This Off?
This could be good for Facebook and very bad for Twitter, depending on many factors. One of those factors is how abused or ignored Facebook users feel as time goes on.
Users have been the butt of changes that Facebook continually makes, plus with Zuckerberg’s promiscuous outlook on your online privacy, there’s a hard pitch to sell as some users just aren’t pleased with how they’re handled.
Just recently Facebook made a change to the email notification update frequency. During that update, users profiles were adjusted in the background so that if you want to continue to receive updates, you have to go to your profile and change this new setting back. Grr.
But with Facebook addressing the ease of subscribing, they are becoming much more like Twitter has been, but with a strong established presence and an already successful business model. All the while Twitter is still trying to find its own footing in how to make itself popular.
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