Sharing content on Facebook hasn’t generally been as easy as it has been on Twitter. Part of Twitter’s advantage is just how easy it is to share from blogs and other websites. A lot of this has to do with the Tweetmeme (
) buttons, which are those Twitter (
) buttons you see on Mashable () and elsewhere that count up how many retweets a webpage experiences. Facebook’s () never really had an equivalent. Until now.
Quietly the world’s largest social network has been working on a new version of Facebook Share, one that includes buttons that can count the amount of shares a specific article gets across Facebook’s vast platform. Today, they launch officially at 10:00 AM PT, though you’ve probably already seen them being tested on a few websites, including Mashable, during the last week or so.
Installing the new Facebook Share buttons just involves adding a few lines of code – it’s actually one of the simplest implementations of Facebook Connect around. Once active, the live counter will check for the number of times your URL has been shared on Facebook. Facebook is also providing analytics for the Facebook Share buttons, including the number of shares, the number of “likes” for a story, the number of comments, and the number of clickbacks. The analytics are available via an API call
It’s easy to see why publishers would add the official Facebook button – it can count shares that aren’t part of the public Facebook stream and it has advanced analytics (we love knowing how many comments we receive on our stories). For Facebook, it helps foster a community of sharing on its platform – something that Twitter has been taking in recent months.
Now, if you want to try out the new Facebook Share buttons, all you have to do is click “share” on the Facebook button on the top left of this article. Tell us what you think in the comments.
