Implications of The #Facebook #Subscribe Button - Pros and Cons

Since the launch of Google+ and it's success in recruiting users, Facebook has been adding new features frantically - the new photo viewing options, video chatting, new navigation bars, and most recently, the subscription button.

This new feature allows users to subscribe to updates, including photos, statuses and more, from people they aren't already Facebook Friends with. This may not seem like a big deal yet, but it opens a door to endless potentials for brands, celebrities and thought leaders for better broadcasting. Of course, on the flip side, with potential comes a great deal of risk.

Here are a few aspects I jotted down briefly:

 
Pros:

1. Facebook and Twitter just had a baby.

Facebooks, Google+, and Twitter are all unique in their own user interfaces and purposes. Twitter can be considered mass broadcasting through microblogging where anyone can tweet with or read other users' tweets, given that they're not private. Google+ is a more general interface that focuses more on user sectoring, and Facebook, the friend connector, allowing friends to catch up, learn more about, and maintain relations with one another without physically hanging out. 

However, this subscription button changes all that. Allowing users to follow others' updates without friending incorporates Twitter's broadcasting aspect, creating a TON of opportunities for celebrities, brands and others to broadcast their messages to a larger audience.

2. Better classifications of your friends and invisible stalking.

No more limited profiles, or friend requests. That's right. You no longer have to be friends with someone to stalk them if they enabled the subscription button. Also, you don't necessarily have to friend people you just met in order to see what they're up to until you hang out with them more.

With subscription, you can now classify your friends/ non-friends into lists so your updates are all categorized. You don't have to see updates of farmville or restaurant city any more. Just like twitter, you can categorize your news outlets, fashion tips, non-profit events, anything you wish so they are better organized. There are options to hide photo updates, video updates, and more from lists to make your feed more personalized.

Cons:

1. It just murdered the two-way connect flow

Facebook is unique in that it encourages a two-way communication. It's about friends and connection. The subscription button just threw all that out the window. It's true that Twitter itself focuses on engagement even though it's a free-for-all type of conversation, but the word "Facebook Friends" just got degraded.

2. New metrics needed

With public subscriptions, the measuring system just got complicated. Facebook Insights will have to come up with better metrics to measure subscriber activities.

3. Back to the Privacy Issue

I am sure most of everyone is social media savvy by now, but there are of course people who are still a little lost trying to catch up with all the tools bombarded their way. For people who want to use Facebook personally, the subscribe button may cause issues, as it allows non-friends to read your updates.

Changing its mission statement.

Just from first impressions, it seems to me that the subscription button is definitely a good move in terms of helping brands and celebrities work their marketing strategies. However, if Facebook were to follow its original 2008 mission of " “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” Then the subscription button is way out of its boundaries. Its new mission statement however, became “Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” This for me makes Facebook a lot more business and revenue oriented, and a little negligent of user interests.

What are your opinions on the new Facebook Subscribe button?

What you might also be interested in:

Facebook Subscribe Button: What It Means for Each Type of User

What Facebook's new Subscribe button means to brands and businesses 

The Complete Guide To Facebook’s Subscribe Button

Google's attempt to be more social with the +1 button - The Pros and Cons

As many of you may have noticed, a strange new button appeared in your blog's sharing bar - the new Google +1 button!

What in the world is this?
This is Google's attempt to be more social and to tune in to the social media network. It's kind of like another version of the Facebook "Like" button. It allows you to give the thumbs up for content and whatever you +1'd will show up on your Google account, (which can be made public or private). In other words, a sharing network where you can see what your friends +1'd.

Since it's unexpected early launch in March, the +1 button has appeared in blogger and been imported to other non-Google blogging sites (like Mashable) through embedded coding. The button itself is in full function, but other features such as +1 for Google search engine is yet in place.

Many people take no interest yet in this new gadget, since many of Google's recent attempts such as Buzz have slowly gone into the dark. A few concerns seem to arise:

- How is it different from all the other recommendation buttons such as the Facebook "Like" or the Tweet counts?

- Why bother going through all that to share content while we are trying to keep up with the gazillion other social media tools such as Twitter and Tumblr?

Here's some pros and cons I see so far:

Cons:

1.) It's overwhelming my buttons! 
- It adds to the gazillion buttons there are already in the share/recommend bar in every blog. It's not that we're lazy, but when there are 5 buttons all on the same page, Tweet, Like, E-mail, Reblog, Buzz, are you really going to click ALL OF THEM? Personally, I'd stick with one, or at most two.

2.) It doesn't show you who +1'd your content 
- I'm not sure if Google doesn't have it up and running yet or just doesn't intend to have this function at all, but it makes me anxious. It's the same concept as re-tweeting- when you get a retweet, it's nice to know who did and thank them/return the favor.

Pros

1.) It integrates with the Google search engine 
- This is something the Facebook like button has yet to do. The audience will be so much larger since it's not restricted to friends. I'm guessing this will intervene with the search engine rankings. If this is the case, I'm sure people will start gaming the system but that's a different story I'll blog about when +1 is in full throttle.

2.) It has elaborate analytics (or so I read online saying that it will...) - 

I'm not sure how this works if indeed they aren't going to show you who +1'd you. But, if everything is in place, the analytics would provide a pretty decent analytics of who likes and recommend your content for targeting your audience.

With this said, I'm anxious to see where the +1 button will take us. Give it a try, wait a little, maybe it'll be the next biggest thing!