Keith Vera
Client Services Manager
Looking to move more into competition with Google, Facebook announced today new features that will help Facebook users share their web activity with their contacts, or friends, as they browse the web. Focused on the peer connection, Facebook hopes to continue to grow its social media dominance by further connecting “friends”, allowing them to share web activity and interests outside of the Facebook website.
How it works: Websites can now install a “like” button or even use widgets that lets users share web content with their friends outside of Facebook.com. Comments and “likes” on content will show up on friend’s Facebook home pages, effectively sharing users browsing history, preferences, and interests (that they choose to share of course) as they move through the web outside of Facebook.com. Websites with large amounts of content will be able to take this new social browsing standard one step further, and outline within their pages what someone’s peers liked or recommended within a site.
The Washington Post has a interesting new Facebook news feature on the home page that will show the most popular Facebook “shared” articles, and the browsing activity of Facebook friends on the Washington Post site as long as you are logged into Facebook or Facebook Connect. Here is an image of the Washington Post homepage widget:
- Washington Post Facebook Widget
Here is the expanded view of the feature showing the most popular overall activity as well as Friend activity:
- Washington Post Facebook Widget
You can read a bit more on the announcement from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on the Facebook blog. Be sure to comment on this post and let us know your thoughts on the new Facebook changes and the impact.
