• Five Months In, 2 Million Websites Using Facebook's New Social Plugins

    Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

    Leena Rao currently works as a writer for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More

    At the Web 2.0 expo in New York today, Facebook CTO Bret Taylor announced that 2 million websites have added the “Like” button and Facebook’s other new social plug-ins, which were launched five months ago. Facebook also confirmed the stat in a Tweet.

    That’s impressive considering the number was 50,000 only five months ago. Facebook’s new social plugins,which include a ‘Like’ button for the web and an array of other widgets, were launched at f8 in April.

    Aside from the Like Button, Facebook’s other social plugins include an activity feed that displays your friends’ activity, a widget with recommended articles, and the Facepile, which shows you photos of your friends who also use the site you’re browsing. And Facebook recently revealed a slimmer, sleeker Like button.

    In a note posted today, Facebook says that some of the publishers using the new plugins are seeing increases in traffic after embedding the new social plugins. For example, ABC News saw a 190% jump and Gawker saw a 200% increase in traffic. Publishers also reported increased engagement on their sires. For example, NHL.com reports that visitors are reading 92% more articles, spending 85% more time on-site, viewing 86% more videos, and generating 36% more visits.

    Company: Facebook
    Website: facebook.com
    Launch Date: February 1, 2004
    IPO: NASDAQ:FB

    Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 845 million monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...

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