19 April 2010 | Author: J. Morton Search Copywriter

Facebook to lose 'Become a fan' in favour of 'Like' button

Facebook users, prepare for the obligatory anti-Facebook redesign group page invites now: The web company is planning for yet another revamping that will see one of its major features restructured in coming months.

According to reports, the social networking site will be closing up the option to 'Become a Fan' of various pages - which include companies, entertainment figures and products - in favour of a redesigned and repurposed 'Like' button. The announcement concerning the alteration of these features is expected to come at Facebook's F8 conference Wednesday 21 April in San Francisco.

Brand Republic reports that the new 'Like' button will still enable Facebook users to connect with their favourite musical groups, actors, television shows, films and charitable causes, but will also allow online publishers to add the button to external websites.

"We've found that 'Like' is more global, easy to understand, and users are already comfortable and familiar with it, making the process of connecting with a Page more consistent with how they already interact with things on Facebook," a representative of Facebook said.

The company maintains that the features offered will remain largely unchanged, even if they are rebranded.

"The core functionality of Pages will remain unchanged. Pages will still have distribution into News Feed, and the administrators of those Pages will still be able to call the people connected to their Page, 'fans'," the representative said.

The more controversial element of the proposed change, however, lies in the company's retention of the history of users' 'liked' pages, of which reports have surfaced. This will likely cause friction with proponents of web privacy.

Another big change, though one outwith the Facebook main portal, will see the networking site offering more through its Facebook Connect service. Facebook will reportedly be offering external sites a toolbar to promote connectivity between various websites.