It’s true. Facebook have announced the launch of a new beta ‘Community Page’, which will help connect people with similar interests. The launch, which was announced on Monday, derived from Facebook’s US f8 conference and will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

Community Pages are aimed for Facebook users to create pages about topics and interests, themes and ideas they are interested in but which currently do not fit under the more customized Facebook Groups and Fan pages.

The new page was devised as an alternative to a Fan Pages which are developed for businesses, public figures and organisations. However the community pages are also designed to enhance personal pages.

Info pages on personal profiles will be enhanced by these connections such as, hometown, education and work, likes and interests, explains Alex Li from Facebook. In true Wikipedia style each community page, of which 6.5million will be created, will be available on any subject.

To modify pages you can request to add content to pages through a system where Facebook will notify you as to whether you are eligible to make a modification. The pages will include live streaming of relevant Facebook information for example, status updates.

The new initiative has already started to prompt users to amend information on profiles, linking to either Community Pages or Official Pages; a pop up box will recommend pages according to the information which you have included on your profile, you will then select how public you want this information to be, who will see it etc.

Another change is that Facebook are phasing out the link ‘Become a Fan’, instead of clicking on that users will now just click the ‘Like’ link, and to removed the link to fan pages there will now be an ‘Unlike’ link at the bottom of a page, alternatively fan pages can be removed through editing your profile.

Some industry experts believe adding the ‘Community Pages’ was a logical move in order to compete with information sharing sites like Wikipedia, however from a users perspective both socially and for business purposes the move could be a little confusing.

So, what are your initial thoughts and where do you think Facebook will venture next? Your opinions please…

Sources: http://ow.ly/1AEQH & http://www.insidefacebook.com