Tuesday 3 April 2012

Facebook’s New Ways for News Updates


News is no longer the well-written article or a controversial headline by reporters. The way news is disseminated within a new social medium seems to have made users into journalists, where the user can exercise a wide variety of information of what they consider as newsworthy and through the source of their choice.
It is interesting to note the way users select and absorb information, i.e. through indirect contacts simply because of diversity in interests. This in turn leads to more learning, compared with the immediate circle which generally shares common interests. The updates one receives from their immediate circle can be a waste of time and page space. Therefore, social media has offered ways to tunnel the information directly from indirect sources onto the user page.
Subscribe
A few months earlier, Facebook introduced the ‘Subscribe’ button as a choice for users to ‘Allow Subscriber’, in addition to the ‘like’ and ‘comment’ option. It may be set as private or public, where users will receive updates transmitted to their page. The choice is not simply limited to user selection. The quantity and quality of information can also be controlled after selecting the subscribe button, by specifying whether the user requires ‘all’, ‘most’ or ‘only important t’ updates and also tick marking on ‘life events,’ ‘status updates,’ ‘photos and videos’ and ‘games.’
News Feed
Following this, while Twitter has previously provided the ‘Twitter Lists’ option for users to choose the kind of information, Facebook will allow the user to specify and organize the information by other users by adding them on their ‘interest list.’ The purpose is similar to the way a user organizes his or her friends’ lists. Major advantages to this tunneling of information are that users will not require researching news sites, because they will already have received updates within their own page and will even be able to keep information out from within their won contacts.
How companies can avail the opportunity through apps
The news feed has paved the way for social media to not just be people-focused’ but more information-focused. Recently, media companies such as Huffington Post, MSNBC.com and Pixable have incorporated media apps onto their Timeline page as a way of relaying specific news. Consequently, new users have added the Facebook apps which has thereby increased traffic to their sites. So what you have to say will catch the attention of readers rather than who you are. By creating interesting and relevant news, companies can post updates and link them to blogs and videos to inform people about their products.

This post originally appeared on  Avenuesocial.

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