Facebook, the largest social networking site unveiled its latest offering which is the "subscribe" button for third party websites.

The Subscribe button was already available to pages since September and now this feature is already available for user profiles and websites. In a blog post written by Facebook developer Stoyan Stefanov, the Subscribe button is a "social plugin any site can add to give visitors the option to subscribe to contributors in one click." Stevanov also described how this feature works stating that "the Subscribe button for websites works just like the button on Facebook; once clicked the user will begin seeing the public posts of the person they have subscribed to in his or her News Feed. The subscribe action is also shared -- allowing others to subscribe directly via the News Feed stories, and further increasing viral distribution."

In order to add the subscribe button, users can easily access it through using XFBML or an iframe. Though anyone could technically subscribe to a certain website or user profile, the owners of these respective websites or user profile has the option to block subscribers especially when it is violating any policies in the site. Personal profiles could also opt to have subscribers through visiting the subscription page and click on the "allow subscribers" option.

Publishers and reporters would be the ones to fully benefit from this Facebook feature because they are able to promote themselves and the stories that they write through the social networking site. Facebook has more than 800 million users and this number alone could be a potential market for online publications. Publishers as well as reporters are hoping to take advantage of these numbers. Once the subscribe button is installed, there is a big chance that reporters and publishers could attract a large number of subscribers in their page and at the same time, drive traffic to their articles and website.

The Subscribe button is already working with several media partners. These media partners include Absolute Radio, AllThingsD, ANSA.it, The Daily Beast / Newsweek, Forbes.com, GQ Italia, The Huffington Post, Mashable, Ministry of Sound, msnbc.com, NME.Com, TechCrunch, TIME.com, TODAY.com, and washingtonpost.com