It’s been a busy couple of weeks at Facebook – you may have noticed some changes on how your interface looks and feels recently, and seen some changes on how you are alerted to news stories too – with fewer alerts jamming your email inbox.

Arguably the top recent news is that Facebook has launched a subscribe button, which basically enables you to choose the exact type of updates that you see from your friends. Crucially – much like Twitter – it also lets you follow users who you’re not yet friends with.

The new feature gives you three choices as to how much info you receive into your news feed from specific friends: all updates, most updates or important updates only. You can also specify which types of updates want to see, and those that you don’t. Don’t need to see another story about Farmville or Texas Hold’em Poker? Just opt-out for that friend. Sounds good doesn’t it…!

The option to subscribe to users who aren’t your friends is a significant step for Facebook as this function was a major difference between the site and its rival Twitter. As long as the people that you want to follow allow subscribers to their updates – you can follow them. Therefore following a celebrity on Facebook (if that’s your thing) becomes much easier as they don’t have to ‘accept your friend request’ any more.

Even if you’re not a celebrity (yet) you can allow non-friends to check out your updates by clicking on the ‘Allow Subscriptions’ tab on the subscriptions page. Only public updates will be visible if you choose to do this.

Need to know more about Facebook? Check out my blog or drop me a line by visting my contact page!