Now might be a good time to check your privacy settings as Facebook have just unveiled the ‘subscribe’ button. In a bid to further compete with Twitter & Google+, this feature allows users to subscribe to other people’s public updates which will appear in their news feeds. Public updates are those which are not restricted by any privacy settings, indexed by Google and can therefore be seen by anyone online.

“The ‘subscribe’ button means that as well as friends on the site, Facebook users can now have followers that they don’t know, just like on Twitter. Interestingly when a Facebook user sends a friend request to another person on the site, they instantly become a subscriber to that user’s public updates – unless the user turns the subscribe button off” - Emma Barnett, Digital Media Editor of The Telegraph.

To check your subscription settings, click the ‘subscriptions’ link on the left-hand side of your profile. If your privacy setting are already locked down like mine, then the subscribers should be turned off too.

Another new feature launched by Facebook this week was Smart Lists, a new tool which is being seen as a direct response to ‘Circles’ in Google+. This feature makes it easier for people to group their Facebook friends into different categories, so a user can control who they see the most or least information from. Smart Lists automatically groups friends with common characteristics into Friend Lists based on their relationships and what they have in common.

Source: The Telegraph

If you’re wandering along Oxford Street on a Friday feeling in need of a caffeine injection head on over to Debenhams, check in with Foursquare and collect your free coffee.

Debenhams is one of the latest national retailers to get on board with the emerging location-based social network Foursquare. If you’re not familiar with this new phenomenon, the basic idea is that you ‘check in’ to real-world places from your GPS-enabled mobile device and earn points for doing so. And what do points mean? Well, free coffee in Debenhams’ case but the possibilities are endless for retailers to utilise this service to retain their customer base and gain new customers.

When you check in, your foursquare friends are notified of your whereabouts (hmmm… a bit Big Brother) and you can automatically Tweet and update your Facebook status too. There are other features of the service like ‘tips’ (if the place you’re in does the most awesome hangover bacon butties) to help you spread the word about what’s great … and what’s not so great about where you are.

Of course, the potential for bricks & mortar retailers to capitalise on this are significant. Offer discounts, freebies, new services to loyal customers who check-in with foursquare and they’ll spread the word for you. And hopefully a good word at that.

Foursquare in the UK is in its infancy. But it looks set to become big in 2010. Who knows, with national retailers like Debenhams coming on board, it might even see growth like Twitter saw last year. Watch this space.

The current social media phenomenon is Twitter, before that it was Facebook, MySpace and Friends Reunited. And while your brand wants exposure in the most popular digital environments you shouldn’t forget there are some communities that are probably here to stay.

What am I talking about? Well it can only be Facebook can’t it?

In the UK only Google gets more traffic than Facebook and in terms of social networking websites Facebook is a country mile ahead of the field.

I’m certainly not saying forget everything else but given that Facebook traffic is more than everything else in the top 10 added together you’d be crazy not to even consider it. Add to the fact that it has 200 million active users and more than 4 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day then the reasons not to become harder to justify.

So, what options are available?

For brands the obvious place to start is by creating a fan page. They are quick to set-up, easily tailored to your needs and can become extremely viral if done properly. The key benefit though is that it gives your brand the opportunity to listen and talk to your consumers in an environment they are already very comfortable in.

Redbull on Facebook

Adding fancy gadgets and links to your corporate site is fine but the chances of your page being successful will be pretty slim. At the launch of Creston’s strategic approach to social media Kieron Matthews of the IAB stressed the importance of “respecting your environment”. If you are going to enter into your consumer’s community then make sure you follow their rules. If you don’t then you could quite easily end up following Habitat’s recent Twitter debacle.

A few fan page must do’s are:

• Conversation is key. If your fans ask a question, give you feedback or make a complaint then don’t ignore it: respond. Being open and honest will create trust.
• Keep your fans engaged with regular updates but don’t over do it so it becomes spam.
• Plan ahead and create a content plan. That way you always have something to say.
• Make your fans feel special. Treat them to Facebook only discounts or leak them news before it’s officially released.
• Remember it’s a two way conversation. Treat your fan’s as individuals and try to add a human face to your brand.

Facebook fan pages aren’t right for every brand but if you do venture down this route then make sure you invest the time in listening and responding to your customers.

And one final thought: more than 6 million users are becoming fans of Pages each day.

Google has teamed up with major social networking sites to fight the Facebook juggernaut. They are working on an initiative to provide an open, standards-based approach to social networking … OpenSocial.

TechCrunch reports…

OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks:

• Profile Information (user data)
• Friends Information (social graph)
• Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)

Hosts agree to accept the API calls and return appropriate data. Google won’t try to provide universal API coverage for special use cases, instead focusing on the most common uses. Specialized functions/data can be accessed from the hosts directly via their own APIs.

Unlike Facebook, OpenSocial does not have its own markup language (Facebook requires use of FBML for security reasons, but it also makes code unusable outside of Facebook). Instead, developers use normal javascript and html (and can embed Flash elements). The benefit of the Google approach is that developers can use much of their existing front end code and simply tailor it slightly for OpenSocial, so creating applications is even easier than on Facebook.

We are about to build a couple of Facebook applications for a new client, so may well need to investigate OpenSocial as it becomes available. Watch this space.

I just read an interesting article on PlentyOfFish, the hugely successful one-man-band (Markus, below) online dating site which has some references to the page impressions served by Facebook…

“Markus told me that per page view, Plentyoffish has 5-10 times the click through rate of Facebook. So by his calculations, POF’s 1.2 Billion page views per month is the same as 5-10 Billion Facebook page views per month. Facebook “only” generates 40 billion page views a month and yet it has a $15 Billion valuation”

And while I’m on the subject of Facebook, you should be aware that they are launching a new ad network on 6th November in place of their current Facebook Flyers.

If you’re a Facebook user, you’ll want to be aware that soon they will be opening up your profile to Google search. The BBC reports …

The default setting is that you will be made available to Google and the like, unless you opt out. Of course, this raises privacy concerns…and I’m sure will cause a number of Facebook users to question how much of their information is freely available.

If you want to opt-out of being publicly searchable, you’ll find a tick-box in the Search Privacy settings of your Facebook account - as shown below.