Is Facebook a copycat? : A look into Facebook's subscribe button and improved friend lists

In the last week, Facebook has made two announcements on new updates to the platform: the addition of the ‘subscribe button’ and the new ‘friend lists’.  These updates have spurred a series of questions around Facebook’s loyalty to its original mission and have made many ponder, “Is Facebook a copycat?”

• Choose what updates you see from people in News Feed
• Hear from people, even if you're not friends
• Let people hear from you, even if you're not friends

 The most interesting aspect of these new features is the ability to subscribe to people’s newsfeeds you are not friends with. Isn’t Facebook all about friends? In its overview, Facebook states it “is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers.” Now Facebook is letting you follow those who haven’t accepted your friendship – sound familiar? Yes, it’s just like Twitter!
 
Is Twitter’s news sharing capabilities something Facebook is trying to tap into here? With Twitter traffic going up 22% over football players’ affairs & jumping more than 15% over the UK riot, Facebook could be looking into a way to tap into these traffic flares with consumers subscribing to news sources and media accounts.
 
In its second announcement of the week, Facebook revamped and improved the friend lists functionality. These ‘smart lists’ divide your friends into lists depending on what they have in common. With these lists, you can view all similar friends in one location…sound like Google+ circles to anyone else?

• Smart lists:You'll see smart lists that create themselves and stay up-to-date   based on specific profile info your friends have in common with you-- like      your work, school, family and city.
• Close Friends and Acquaintances lists:You can see your best friends' photos and posts in one place, and see less from people you're not as close with.
• Better suggestions: You can add the right friends to your lists without a lot of effort.

 Facebook has evolved since its first version in 2004, originally just a place to connect with classmates, and has now grown into a site with more than 750 million active users. Facebook’s upgrades are no doubt a way to benchmark itself against its giant competitors and keep users active on its site. 
 
Will users accept these changes as Facebook becomes more of an information network or will they still head over to Twitter for the latest news and sign up for Google+, just to see what all the fuss is about?
 
What will Facebook be copying next? Neilson’s Q3 Social Media Report noted Tumblr as one of the most noted emerging platforms in social media – should we expect to see Tumblr element incorporated? Will this be an improvement on Facebook’s part of increase users’ ability to meet new friends with similar interests? We will have to be on the look-out for this.
 
Keep an eye out for a future post on more of these possible platform mimics, and how these changes will affect brand presence on Facebook.