Facebook's 'share' buttons: Now with numbers

Spot the Facebook sharing button on Cracked.com

(Credit: Facebook/Cracked)

Web publishers and blog owners have a new toy to play with: Facebook announced Monday that it has launched new "share" buttons with counters, much in the manner of Digg's iconic buttons and the third-party TweetMeme app for Twitter sharing.

Plus, there's more: Publishers installing Facebook share buttons can also get data back related to how many times that link has been shared, how many users have hit the thumbs-up "like" button or commented on shared versions of the story on Facebook, and how many people have clicked back to it through Facebook.

These Facebook "share" buttons had existed before, and the company said that more than 2 billion pieces of content are shared per week. But this is the first time that the counter and analytics have been available.

A post on the Facebook developer blog explains: "Anyone can add the Share button to their website with little to no technical experience, and style the button from a variety of options." Accessing the analytics however, requires a bit more coding know-how.

This could spell bad news for Digg, as Facebook's significantly bigger and more mainstream audience could make it a far more appealing choice for site owners that would prefer to display one prominent sharing button rather than two. As for Twitter, it doesn't actually own the app that powers the "retweet" buttons. A move like this from Facebook, however, could push it to think a bit harder about a partnership or acquisition--or hasten progress on that "retweet API" it has in the works.

Related speculation: When are we going to see a "most-shared" ranking from Facebook? That's when Digg's execs would really have to start sweating.

[ducttape36]

and now we know. (and knowing is half the battle!)

seriously, when i saw these start to appear on cracked i had no idea what it was. thanks for clearing that up.

[mfpwnc]

Caroline, can you cover the topic of Facebook problems not limited to accessing accounts? Friends lists completely disappear, messaging is very problematic, sharing has its bugs, every function within acts like there is a virus in there. These problems randomly come and go. Is this a widespread problem?

[codynews]

I honestly know NO ONE that uses digg. And I've only been there once to see what all the "hype" was about. If the goof balls that started that site didn't take the $ offered (I thought I saw a story where they were offerer gobs of money and turned it down) then I bet they're feeling pretty lame right about now...

Digg will be history soon...