Facebook Inc (FB) Wants To Be Your News Source Too

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Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) really wants to control every part of your life. Now it wants to be your news source too, by letting anyone embed public posts into their timeline. Sounds a lot like what Twitter did years ago.

Facebook Inc (FB) Wants To Be Your News Source Too

Embedded Posts rolled out to everyone

The social network first introduced the Embedded Posts feature last month. It enables publishers to take any public post from Facebook and embed it in their website or blog. As of today, the feature became available to all users of the social network. They also provided some additional enhancements based on feedback Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) received from its launch partners.

The social network made it possible for videos from Embedded Posts to play directly on the website they have been embedded on. In addition, developers can access the embed code from a third party website. To get the code, they just click the dropdown arrow to the right of the “Follow” or “Like Page” button.

For mobile users, Embedded Posts will be thinner so that they will work better with smaller screens. Also the “Like,” Comment” and “Share” buttons will be a little larger so that they can more easily be tapped on.

Publishers who want to give the social network additional feedback on the Embedded Posts feature are able to join Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s News, Media & Publishing group. Group members also receive the newest updates to products. The company said it is also releasing a new Facebook plugin for WordPress, which will support Embedded Posts.

Facebook playing catch-up to Twitter

Josh Constine of TechCrunch notes that Facebook has a ways to go before it will catch up to Twitter in being a major source of social news. Twitter is already a major source of news because it provides all users with full access to first-person news bits. It also gives journalists an immediate outlet for their breaking news items.

Twitter launched its Embeds feature three years ago, and the feature has helped it grow. So basically we have Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) copying Twitter yet again. It already stole the hashtag from Twitter, so why not the Embeds feature too?

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