14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook is expanding the use of its new Subscribe button, it is now adding it to the Comments Box plugin, enabling users to subscribe to interesting people regardless of what site they're on. Until now, the Subscribe button was only added to the profile page of a user and it was the only way to subscribe.
"Today we launched a 'Subscribe' link in the Comments Box plugin to give people the ability to subscribe to commenters in one click, and give commenters another way to grow their Subscriptions base. Have you turned on Subscribe yet?," Facebook announced.
Now, in Facebook-powered comments on any website, you'll see a subscribe button next to the name of any commenter. There is also a counter of how many subscribers that user already has.
This should put the feature in front of a lot more people and greatly simplify the process. As a result, the number of people subscribing should be on the rise, faster than before.
A couple of months ago, Facebook finally relented on its symmetrical friending process. You could only be friends with someone if they approved you.
There were ways of getting around this, for example, adding someone as a friend and then not approving the request or denying it. This would subscribe you to public posts by that user, even if you weren't friends.
Facebook main idea behind this is that it wanted the site to be for real friends, an extension of an offline relationship.
But Google+'s model, which allows people to add someone to their circles, subscribing to public posts, without getting added back, became rather popular.
Facebook, which has been tweaking the site to counter some of Google+'s features, doesn't plan to sit around and watch Google+ grow. It may claim that Google+ is not a threat and that may be true, but Facebook can't afford to leave things to chance.