Well, it turns out that Facebook has included all of the meta data and thumbnail info for the like button around the web. This is great news for publishers as it gives the content that we and/or our users “like” more visibility in the Facebook stream. Along with that, it will likely greatly reduce the clutter that we see from around the web with share implementations, many publishers still have the facebook share and like button on their site. Time to clean up your UI!
I noticed the change this morning when I liked a TechCrunch article by Alexia Tsotsis about the epic Crush Notifier app for Facebook. So, as always in my morning reading, I liked it, and bam, there it was:
Previously the likes on Facebook wouldn’t even make it into the stream, it would only show up on your profile. A couple weeks ago I started noticing it in the stream, but, it was just the link and no thumbnail or meta data. Here is what you would see previously on the profile:
The only way to get the thumbnail and meta data was if someone commented on the item on your blog/website:
Anywho, I waited a little more and then liked another type of content, the Kim Kardashian profile on Myspace. And, here it is, again in the Facebook stream:
My guess is that this will dramatically improve the clicks that publishers and sites receive through the Facebook stream. Along with that, as we’ve known for sometime, Google and Bing have been using Social Signals for search rankings. I recommend removing Facebook Share implementations and start giving those like buttons more prominent placement on those pages!
Let me know your thoughts in the comments or if you have noticed anything different, since I just noticed the change this morning, would love to know if this is a test or full release. Don’t be shy, let’s get a convo going on pro’s, con’s, SEO benefits, etc.
Update: Mashable has written a post that confirms this and stay up to date with the news on Tech Meme
That's cool actually… I still dislike how they pull images from the post… they say they take the first image in source but that's not always true. For http://UpChuck.us I got tired of the way it worked and always pulling the sidebar image… I wrote a WordPress plugin so that opengraph would take the featured image regardless if it was on the page or not…
And also for the fact that likes didn't add that added meta data on the FB wall I've been using "FB share" instead… So I'll have to revisit my plugin and which FB button I'm going to use.
Thx for the heads up T
I totally know what you mean about the image form the post, I feel like they post the first image in the markup. That's why my mug shows up on facebook all the time when i like my own posts! Makes me feel so narcistic, I swear I'm not!
In regards to the plugins, there are a couple like plugins, I am still not happy with my implementation on here, but I use plugins for twitter and facebook. But, this is a good move, going to clean up a lot of the UI on sites…less clutter of share buttons.
yeah yours is adding a whole table setup :/ eeek… I'll have to find one that'll work or just rewrite mine to work inline w/ my other ones. don't like the shar.es shortlink that plugin overwrites all my stuff with anyways.
I haven't seen it implement on my facebook, but I'll keep an eye for it. Not only is this great for the publishers of the original content, but you can also spot spam and virus sites more easily now because I've seen a lot more spam on facebook recently.