Facebook Becoming More Like Twitter, May Add 'Fans' Feature

Facebook is continuing its transformation, taking another step, two smaller ones actually, towards becoming more like Twitter. A change in that direction is the blurring of the lines between Facebook Pages and Profiles with several tweaks and, apparently, a new feature that will allow users to become 'fans' of a profile, much like Twitter followers.

The first modification changes the name of the “All Friends” page, which is now “All Connections.” It may look like a small change, but this makes the distinction between Facebook Profiles and Facebook Pages even smaller. A big part of the new feature is the ability to add Facebook Pages to the friend list, allowing users to group certain friends and friend lists into feeds.

The second feature apparently coming was spotted by the All Facebook blog, noticing a new option in the email notification selection. The new option would alert Facebook users when another user “Connects me as a fan,” implying a new feature similar to Twitter followers, which would be a clear sign that the social network believes that at least some of Twitter's choices and functionality would benefit from it.

Facebook has been under a transformation lately, adopting features from the hugely popular micro-blogging platform Twitter. While Facebook has had a traditionally closed approach to user information, it has recently become more open, having introduced just this week new privacy options when publishing a status update, photo, or other content. This would allow users to easily make their new content available publicly.

Also very recently, Facebook introduced a new search, still in beta, which is focused more on content and not on people. The new search brings real-time capabilities and makes it easier to find photos or videos on the site. All of these moves point to the fact that, while Facebook is still much bigger than Twitter, the social network is feeling the pressure and isn't going to let the micro-blogging service become too much of a threat.