Earlier this month TC writer MG Siegler wrote a post called The Speed of Share, where he noted that sharing content to Facebook wasn’t as good an experience as it was for many of the various Twitter services like Tweetmeme. Today, that balance changes a bit: Facebook has just launched a new version of Facebook Share, which includes such niceties as a live counter that tells you how many times an item has been shared. We’ve just rolled it out to TechCrunch as well. Try it out above!
Along with the improved look of the Share Button, Facebook Share now offers publishers detailed analytics, allowing you to see how many times a link has been shared, as well as actions that occur on Facebook itself, like the number of comments and Likes it’s received as well as the number of times people have clicked on the link back to your site.
Apparently some of this data was already available to select partners, too: Facebook’s blog post notes that Techmeme has been using it to help select top stories, and link shorteners bit.ly and awe.sm for improved analytics.
You can find Facebook’s blog post, which includes details on implementing the new widget, here.
It will be interesting to see how Twitter can develop features that can remain “branded” as a “Twitter feature”.
This Facebook button provides the analytics that is very important to companies so again, FB does and does better.
yeah the analytics are great. eliminates the need for third party buttons such as sharethis and addthis.
They’re entirely different though, I use facebook for “friends”, people who I will speak to regularly. If I speak to them regularly, surely I’d mention the link to them then? I’d not just fill my facebook stream with links.
They’re different products and that’s perfectly shown with 70+ retweets and <10.
…and the SM-battle goes on! [monty's-excellent!]
Nice one!! fb will go strongly for that.
There is one small glitch, if you click the ’share’ button but then click ‘cancel’ when it prompts you to post it to you page, the number on the article still increases by one. Hopefully Facebook sorts that out soon otherwise all the numbers could be easily inflated.
It only increases on your side. Refresh, it’ll go back down.
Interesting – thanks for the heads up SR
Yes. This Facebook button provides the analytics that is very important to companies so again, FB does and does better.
Is there a Wordpress Plugin available?
Did you mean “we’ve just rolled it out to TechCrunch as well”?
It’s possible to up the share by clicking it, hitting cancel on the opening facebook page, refresh, repeat.
Anyone confirm this? Maybe they should fix that.
Click refresh, the number doesn’t increment on the server.
do they have it for wordpress yet?
TechCrunch is powered by WordPress. I assume it’s a pretty easy process to add.
Well adios, Digg.
But really, my Facebook network (which includes just about everyone I’m acquainted with) tends to be a lot less link/article intensive than Twitter. I wonder if this will noticably increase link-sharing.
Well, I don’t use facebook to share link a lot, I use twitter instead.
Personally, I use different social network site for each specific purposes.. and it seems facebook is trying to cope everything in its grasp. Good for some, but I don’t think I will alter my habit.
I hate how all the ’share on Twitter’ buttons send you to Twitter.com (opening another tap or window). It would be a much smoother process if a modal box opened up and you could share without leaving the content providers website.
The current process feels like a hack!
I am waiting when facebook comes up with a more better sharing option to share across all groups of social networks a person is connected to
http://thetechn...aring-more-fun/
Its about time, is all I can say! I like sharing more on Facebook than on Twitter because I have a more personal relationship with my FB friends.
Wonder if there is a Wordpress plugin for it…
Well we know it is possible because TC uses WP and it is installed here.
those analytical features are welcomed and helpful
Well this facebook adds live share count is really amazing. I really like this