Facebook Introduces My Shares By: Jason Hahn - Topic: Web - Date: October 27, 2006

No, I'm not talking about my (nonexistent) financial portion of the company.  The social networking giant took another step up with the introduction of "My Shares," which allows Facebook users to share videos, pictures, events, and news articles.  The feature gives you the option of publishing these things publicly or just sending them to your friends.

Facebook is quick to point out that "All your privacy settings still apply to anything that is shared."

I tried out the feature to post a Borat clip, and it worked very nicely.  All I had to do was find the URL for the YouTube clip, click on the "My Shares" tab on the left menu on my Facebook page, then paste the URL into the "Share a link" box.  I then had the option of sharing the video publicly or just with my friends.  The video shows up in my Mini-Feed, with the original title, original description, and the original URL as a link (though you can edit the title and description).  The video clip also appears a clickable image, expands to the original video size and plays right in the Mini-Feed.




This could be pretty big for Facebook, who now gets themselves into the video-sharing game.  The feature is very simple to use and control in terms of privacy.  Sharing news articles is also a neat feature (when you share a news article, the image used in the article will appear), especially for those who are more politically-concerned.

Users can also drag a "Share on Facebook" button to their bookmark bars so that they can share with even more ease.

Very nice move for Facebook.  This is probably their biggest move forward in recent memory.

(Yes, even bigger than their borderline-disastrous introduction of feeds.)

Along with the opening of Facebook to anyone, this has the real potential to drive Facebook's traffic to new heights, which has good implications for advertising.

This also makes them that much more appealing for any suitors out there, and probably adds a few bucks to their asking price.

(Ahem, Yahoo!)