When Facebook launched Social Plugins most would think that it was yet another attempt for the company to spread their reach past simple social networking.
Of course, this was exactly what the company seems to be doing and it's proof positive that Facebook is the main point of content digestion for millions of consumers around the world. With Social Plugins, that domination is only going to grow.
Facebook is becoming the social hub for consumers online lives. They connect with family. They share photos. They provide product reviews. They share company news.
For the most part, however, that activity was held within the Facebook walls.
However, Social Plugins tear the barriers off the Facebook.com domain and spread it's interactive content delivery and digestion style to the entire web.
For example, a site called Likebutton.me uses Social Plugins features to show a list of all the items your Facebook friends “Liked” across several websites. The site shows all of the social feeds from each of the sites listed (CNN, YouTube, etc.) on one page. The site is customizable so users can select specific sites and categories that may interest them.
Another site called itstrending shows the most-liked items in categories such as videos on YouTube.
The Social Plugs are going to be seen more and more across a wide variety of website mostly because consumers will expect it. The plugins were launched at the F8 conference recently.
One of the more attractive features of Social Plugins is that just about anyone with a website can use them. You can implement it on your site by creating embeddable code for a Activity Feed plugin for any website you want.