Facebook opens up further — allows sharing from other sites
Facebook, the social networking site that used to take pride in being rigid and closed, tonight continues its enthusiastic embrace of the opposite: Being wide open to the rest of the world.
This time, the Palo Alto company has rolled out a way to let people on other sites to share video, photos and other content with their friends on Facebook — through a special “share” button. This is a logical move for Facebook; it ads flexibility for users, and it drives more traffic.
It works like this: Numerous sites, including the NYT, the WSJ and Photobucket have added a little blue button (with an “F” in it) beside content like video and articles. Users can click on the button, which lets them choose which Facebook friends they want to send it to. They can also send it to their own profile. Beside a NYT article, for example, the button will sit alongside the usual “email this article” or “print this article” buttons.
This lets users share content with friends without leaving the site they are on.
This follows Facebook’s move last week to launch the same “share” feature internally. That first move let users press on a little “share” button beside a piece of content — video, photo or article — and email it to friends within Facebook.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
