Facebook Platform linking web with your friends
Zuckerberg explains key changes
Mark Zuckerberg has explained the forthcoming changes to Facebook, including the way in which it plans to share the connections you make on sites with your friends on Facebook.
Facebook is set to bring in a like button that will allow you to share and highlight content to your friends from other sites, something which founder Zuckerberg believes is increasingly important to the social network.
"We are making it so all websites can work together to build a more comprehensive map of connections and create better, more social experiences for everyone," Zuckerberg blogged.
Redesigned
"We have redesigned Facebook Platform to offer a simple set of tools that sites around the web can use to personalize experiences and build out the graph of connections people are making," he added.
"This next version of Facebook Platform puts people at the center of the web. It lets you shape your experiences online and make them more social.
"For example, if you like a band on Pandora, that information can become part of the graph so that later if you visit a concert site, the site can tell you when the band you like is coming to your area.
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"The power of the open graph is that it helps to create a smarter, personalized web that gets better with every action taken."
Partnerships
Facebook has partnered with the likes of Pandora, Yelp and Microsoft to showcase the new Facebook Platform – which spells the end of the Facebook Connect branding.
"We think that the future of the web will be filled with personalized experiences. We've worked with three pre-selected partners - Microsoft Docs, Yelp and Pandora - to give you a glimpse of this future, which you can access without having to login again or click to connect.
"For example, now if you're logged into Facebook and go to Pandora for the first time, it can immediately start playing songs from bands you've liked across the web. "And as you're playing music, it can show you friends who also like the same songs as you, and then you can click to see other music they like."
It's certainly exciting times if you like sharing, and it will be interesting to see how Google – a company whose Buzz tool has not had the impact it would have helped – responds.
Patrick Goss is the ex-Editor in Chief of TechRadar. Patrick was a passionate and experienced journalist, and he has been lucky enough to work on some of the finest online properties on the planet, building audiences everywhere and establishing himself at the forefront of digital content. After a long stint as the boss at TechRadar, Patrick has now moved on to a role with Apple, where he is the Managing Editor for the App Store in the UK.