Facebook has been releasing a ton of changes lately and, I don’t know about you, but we’re finding it difficult to keep up with them all. Most of the changes were introduced at the Facebook F8 developer conference back in April where Facebook released its new social platform that allows websites and applications to share information about users and create “personalized” web experiences using their Facebook profile information.

Here’s a breakdown of Facebook’s new social platform, its other new features, and what it all means to you.

Social Plugins

Part of Facebook’s new social platform includes its social plugins. These are plugins or code that developers can integrate in to their sites. So far, the most popular plugin (which you may have already noticed on some websites) is the “Like” button.

Users can be browsing a site or reading an article and, if they come across something they like, can click on the “Like” button—which will also show you if any of your friends have liked it, too. This posts a note to your Facebook news feed notifying your friends that you like that particular site, article, brand or product. If you are logged in, the note will automatically be posted to your news feed and if you’re not, you will first be asked to login.

So far, the social plugins have been a hit. According to Mashable, in the first week more than 50,000 websites integrated the new plugins—equal to nearly 300 websites adding Facebook social plugins per hour. As of May 11th, over 100,000 websites had integrated the plugins.

You can explore all of the social plugins available here.

Open Graph

Along with Social Plugins, Facebook has introduced Open Graph. Open Graph, or :Instant Personalization” replaces Facebook Connect and allows partner websites and Facebook applications to share your public Facebook information (and your friends’ public information) with each other. This includes your profile information, your connections, and the services, products and pages that you “like.”

These websites can then take this information and personalize your web experience. They can do this without you even having to login to your Facebook account, because Facebook has also created a new auto-authentication feature.

So far, partners include Yelp, Pandora and Microsoft. As Mashable explains

When you connect to sites like Yelp via your Facebook profile, Yelp will have access to any information you’ve made publicly available
about your favorite foods or favorite bands, and will be able to take that into account when giving you information about restaurants or music venues.
For example, Yelp could pull information about your favorite music from data that Pandora added to the graph when you favorited a song on its site.

The problem with this is that Facebook users have to manually opt out of this feature and then block the applications if users don’t want their information shared by their friends. If you’re worried about your privacy here’s How to Opt Out of Facebook’s New Instant Personalization.

Graph API

All of this is made possible with Facebook’s new Graph API, which is how developers can easily integrate their applications with Open Graph’s user data and how they can add the social plugins to their site with a simple line of HTML code.

The Graph API allows developers to search for information on users, organizations and products at Graph.Facebook.com

If you’re interested, here’s how to add Facebook “Like” buttons to your WordPress blog.

Coming Soon: Facebook’s Location Features

Sometime this month, Facebook is reportedly launching location features which will give users the ability to check in to different locations.

Facebook will be allowing marketers to get in on the game and, according to Advertising Age, McDonald’s will be the first company to test the location features and is building an app that will allow users to check in at a McDonald’s restuartant and a featured item, like a Big Mac, will appear in their post.

This is generating buzz in the online marketing world because it will give marketers the ability to go hyperlocal with their campaigns.

What Does This All Mean For You?

All of these changes represent a potential for Facebook to become even more important in the online space and also more important for a brand’s marketing activities.

This also means that integrating Facebook into your marketing strategy is now easier than ever. Users and fans can easily help promote what they “like” about your brand to their friends, without having to leave your site.

As for Open Graph, it’s unclear how it will effect businesses that do not become “partner” websites with Facebook, but it will definitely change the user experience on the web.

All in all, Facebook’s social changes bring us even more closer to the semantic web. If you’re unclear about what the semantic web is (and why it matters)
this is an excellent documentary:

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

What do we think of Facebook?

We hate it really. We wish them luck and will follow what’s happening but the site is hell to use, slow and continues to change. Plus we are not thrilled about the privacy infringements.