Allowing celebrities or companies to add new functionality to their sites

Jul 9, 2009 09:09 GMT  ·  By
The Facebook Fan Box allows celebrities or companies to add new functionality to their sites
   The Facebook Fan Box allows celebrities or companies to add new functionality to their sites

Facebook is encroaching even more on MySpace territory, which, while overtaken by the former worldwide last year and recently in the US, still has the upper hand with some features. The popular social network is announcing a new feature today, called the “Facebook Fan Box,” which is a widget celebrities, bands, businesses or other organizations can embed in their web sites allowing them to better interact with their fans on the social network.

“The same public figures and organizations you're connected with on Facebook can now install a Facebook Fan Box on their own websites, which shows the most recent updates that are also going into your News Feed. If you're not yet connected to their Facebook Page, you can become a fan directly from their Facebook Fan Box and begin receiving updates on Facebook as well,” Mark Kinsey, product manager, wrote on the Facebook blog.

Facebook made it easy for fans to keep up with their favorite celebrities on the site but wants to take the functionality to other sites as well. Now page admins will see an “Add Fan Box to your site” link allowing them to add the widget to the official sites. The box will show the latest status updates from the fans, and optionally their profile photos, and also has a “Become a Fan” button for those who aren't following their page yet.

The homepages of artists like Kings of Leon or Lenny Kravitz or sports personality Roger Federer already feature the Facebook Fan Box with others bound to follow. But it's not just celebrities; news sites and non-profit organizations have also taken advantage of the new feature and even brands like Coca-Cola or Blackberry. The tool is yet another sign that Facebook is starting to take advantage of its massive user base and trying to become the center of online activity by having sites and services become dependent on the social network for traffic.