Facebook Launches New Widgets Center
Today Facebook officially released its new widgets web site to the masses. It features three widgets that Facebook has already made available, a couple new ones, and will likely feature new widgets as the company rolls them out.
The appeal of widgets for users is that they allow easy and quick integration with existing websites whose administrators might not have the technical know-how to implement a full Facebook Connect application.
Many users were introduced to the widgets site with this message:
The widget site currently has 5 distinct widgets across 2 general categories, Personal Profile Widgets and Website or Business Widgets. They include:
Personal Profile:
Website or Business:
The Profile Badge was the first widget created, appearing as early as 2006 on the main site. For some time that stood as the only one; more recently, the company has released the Live Stream Box and then the Fan Box. Today with the new site, Facebook has released 2 more widgets: The Photo Badge and Page Badge. The Page Badge is almost identical to the original Profile Badge, although it adds a few more details such as fan count. The new Photo Badge allows you to create a widget that showcases a few sample pictures from a photo album you own, then place it anywhere on the web and allow public access to the full album.
Now that Facebook has dedicated a page specifically for widgets, it’s likely we’ll see more crop up over the next few months. We’ll keep you updated as they are unveiled.
