Facebook is rolling out features that link the company’s platform more tightly with outside Web sites (see above). Facebook’s “open graph” would let people see information tailored to their lives and interests wherever they are on the Web, the company’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said.

The idea is to make Facebook the centre of the increasingly social and more personalised experience that people encounter when they use the Internet. Facebook also wants to make it easier for other websites to share information across Facebook’s user base of more than 400 million people.

“We’re building towards a Web where the default is social, every application and product will be designed from the ground up to use real identity,” said Zuckerberg. Facebook users would be able click on a “like” button next to content on sites such as CNN and ESPN, and share the information on their Facebook profiles in a better way than the “share” button that many sites use.

Meanwhile from Nielsen has confirmed the effectiveness of ads on Facebook increases when they're in a social context. Facebook and Nielsen announced the partnership this year to measure the impact of brand advertising on Facebook and the first data, based on an assessment of 14 US campaigns, revealed how social interaction and advocacy can boost the effectiveness of paid-for ads.

For each campaign, more than 1,000 people were polled to find out their ad recall, ad awareness and purchase intent after they were exposed to three different types of ads. The three messages were paid-for home-page ads, paid-for home-page ads that showed which friends had already interacted or become friends of that brand, and news feed updates telling users their friends had interacted with brands (non-paid-for).

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