Facebook to expand with ‘social plugins’

Facebook to expand with ‘social plugins’By Chris Nuttall in San Francisco

Published: April 22 2010 00:38 | Last updated: April 22 2010 00:38

Facebook has launched a major initiative to extend its influence with “social plugins” that embed its social networking service more deeply inside third-party websites.

The plugins are part of an “Open Graph” strategy announced on Wednesday by Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive, at Facebook’s f8 developer conference in San Francisco. Open Graph is an evolution of Social Graph and Facebook Connect, and extends to the web at large.

Mr Zuckerberg said the web existed today as a series of largely unstructured links between pages, but Facebook’s initiative would put people at the centre of the web and provide personally meaningful connections between people and things.

Open Graph was the most transformative thing Facebook had done for the web, he said.

“We’re building towards a web where the default is social – every application and product will be designed from the ground up to use [people’s] real identity and friends.”

Facebook’s power play is likely to be welcomed by website owners and developers but regarded warily by rivals such as Twitter and Google, which launched its Buzz social networking service this year.

With more than 400m members, Facebook’s plugins can drive substantial traffic to sites that install them and boost their advertising revenues. Mr Zuckerberg said Facebook itself would not place ads inside the new features.

The largest social network said it was launching Open Graph with 30 partners spanning categories from books and movies to celebrities and athletes with sites such as CNN’s news site and the ESPN sport site embedding its social plugins.

Facebook users visiting the sites could click a “Like” button on stories they want to share with friends and would see pop-up windows showing friends who had also liked something. They could also see their friends’ activity on the site and share comments through other plugins.

Liking a movie on the IMDB film website would include that movie in the user’s interests in their Facebook profile, with a link back to the original site.

“We think over the next few years that the connections between people and the things they care about will play as big a part as hyperlinks do today in defining people’s internet experiences,” said Bret Taylor, head of Facebook Platform products.

Open Graph will replace Facebook Connect, which allowed users to log in to other websites using their Facebook credentials.

Mr Zuckerberg told a news conference he was eliminating the Facebook Connect brand.

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