I was in the process of writing a post today about the new ability that Facebook’s adding for users and Mike Arrington of course beat me to the punch. Mike is calling it the “Everyone Button” and while I can’t confirm that an “Everyone Button” is how it will be implemented, I can confirm that Facebook will be launching a tool to let users post public status updates. I’ve also heard that users will be able to subscribe to the public status feed of users, in a model that’s similar to Twitter.
This is essentially another step in Facebook’s assault on Twitter. With last night’s announcement of the upcoming launch of Facebook search, it’s clear that the company has its eyes set on Twitter. There are a number of features that are expected to launch in the coming months many which are based around the simplification of communication on Facebook and the Twitterfication of the site. As Gary Vaynerchuk mentioned in his keynote at Big Omma, it’s interesting almost painful to watch Facebook chase after Twitter when the site is so much smaller.
Facebook continues to expand at a rapid pace according to all metrics and despite the rapid growth, the company is still focused on the small microblogging service which is currently the Silicon Valley media darling. Facebook wants to be the company responsible for revolutions in Iran! The company will continue to roll out more features and while Facebook Pages can be used for tracking brands, it’s clear that profiles will have a “follow” feature as well.
Facebook’s decision to roll out the “Everyone” privacy setting on Facebook was part of this shift toward the sharing of public information. Unfortunately managing those privacy settings has proven to be a bit cumbersome for many users. Right now you can already post public status updates but there is no ability to view those updates from the site. Hopefully this theoretical “everyone” button will be the tool that lets users do this.
