Facebook announced the release of two new APIs today that allow "selected news organizations" to integrate posts and data from the social network directly into their content.
The new tools allow these organizations to do anything from simply displaying a real time feed of posts related to a certain topic, to breaking down social conversations by demographics like age, sex, and location.
Facebook provided some examples, like a certain program delving into how many people are discussing a certain topic on Facebook, where they're located, and the age and gender groups among which topic is most popular.
Currently, only Buzzfeed, CNN, NBC's Today Show, BSkyB, Slate, and Mass Relevance have access to the new APIs, but Facebook said it will announce more partners "in the coming weeks."
Tooting its own horn
Facebook highlighted its apparent popularity in today's announcement.
For example, the social network claims that the NFL season kick-off last week garnered 20 million likes, comments, and shares by more than 8 million Facebook users.
In addition an infographic states that 88 million to 100 million Facebook users log in during the "primetime hours" between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. every day in the U.S. alone. And 245 million people discussed, shared, and liked the Super Bowl in February.
Facebook's new tools should allow news organizations and the company's other partners to leverage and explore that activity in new ways.
Surfacing the conversations
Facebook said it's been rolling out products, tools and services "aimed at surfacing the public conversations happening on Facebook."
These include hashtags, embedded posts, and trending topics, according to the social network, as well as the tools announced today.
The tools available to Facebook's select partners today include the Keyword Insights API and the Public Feed API, though based on the language in the announcements it seems other, similar tools will become available in the future.
