Facebook unveils ‘subscribe’ button, says brands should continue to use pages

Actually, Zuckerberg announced Facebook’s Skype-powered video chat, and people mostly shrugged and went on with their lives. In terms of sheer buzz, Google had trumped Facebook—that time.

On Wednesday, Facebook rolled out a feature that is grabbing headlines and challenging its rivals.

Facebook introduced the “subscribe” button, which means you can receive (and send updates to) users who aren’t your “friends,” in a similar manner as Twitter and Google+. Here’s what the new feature enables users to do, according to Facebook:

1. Choose what you see from people in News Feed
2. Hear from people, even if you’re not “friends”
3. Let people hear from you, even if you’re not “friends”

If you do subscribe to someone’s profile, you don’t have to receive every update. You have choices. You can get all updates, most updates, or just the important ones (like an engagement or new job).

Here’s the page for enabling the “subscribe” button on your profile, although Facebook users don’t have to enable it.