Looking at the update positively, commenters would enjoy the new feature as they can see it as an opportunity to increase their subscriber base, with a “Subscribe” link in the comments box.
Facebook debuted this feature last week on Oct. 27, noting that it would help comments to be subscribed in a single click. It boasted its new feature as it said, “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.”
Facebook, however was not the only one praising the feature as one might note that there was another article on InsideFacebook, stating that the new button is meant to increase civility as well. It was quoted noting, “The move ties two products that already work separately to promote public discussion, and improves Subscription discovery which is otherwise limited to its personalized People to Subscribe To list and sidebar modules.”
Facebook, with its reach has got people talking about its new features all the time. In March, it has launched the Comments Box plugin for third-party sites and withing a span of 4 months, there were installations done on 300,000 sites.
Talking about the “Subscribe” option, it had previously given its users an option to “Subscribe” to a specific comment thread. However, they have renamed it, as it is now called “Follow Post”. One might see a slight similarity of this with Twitter’s follow feature that was released last month.
One would not miss out on another positive point of this feature, which is, a common commenter would now be able to increase comment subscribers. This feature would even facilitate developing a healthier community.
InsideFacebook said, “By incentivizing thought leaders to weigh in with the prospect of gaining Subscribers, Facebook can improve discussions without facilitating censorship.”
However, the site did make users aware that the social media giant needs to work hard on monitoring the ‘subscribe spam’, which might be a worry as it said, “Some users may only comment to get exposure for their Subscribe button, or interrupt discussions with ‘SUBSCRIBE TO ME!’ requests. If it can filter out or bury these types of comments, it may have found a way improve both Subscribe and Comments Box through cross-pollination.”
Facebook however even should be aware that there can still be concerns relating to their ongoing privacy issues, as objections are bound to come up yet again. This feature would allow other users to subscribe to one’s comments and there is always a possibility that a number of users might not want to risk getting subscribed to a few users.