Facebook Prepares Social Commerce Launch With New Features

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Facebook is gearing up for a huge social commerce push. The developer who recently discovered that the social network is testing a “Want” button, which would allow you to add products to a virtual wish list, has found a series of new coding for actions that would allow users to share product purchases, charitable donations or items purchased within Facebook games to profile pages and Timeline, Mashable said.

Tom Waddington, a web developer for the site Cut Out + Keep, reached out to Mashable and provided details on the discovery.

“The fact the code contains references to ‘socialcommerce’ is a sign that they’re taking it seriously,” Waddington said. “In the same way music, news and videos are shared on the site, Facebook is planning to allow users to share both Wants and Purchases, from items bought within games to donations.”

Using official Facebook channels to share this information would open up a lot of opportunity for merchants or game developers, allowing products to go viral in ways we’ve seen on sites such as Spotify and Pinterest.

“Considering the huge impact Facebook music has had on Spotify and news integration for sites such as Yahoo, social shopping seems to be the next focus,” Waddington said. “The important distinction is that these aren’t custom integrations — they will be sanctioned and controlled by Facebook, which means they will get the premium placements, similar to the ‘Trending Articles’ unit.”

Waddington also highlighted his findings via his blog.

Last week, Waddington discovered that Facebook has a disabled “Want” button included in the Javascript coding its list of social plug-ins. This means that — in addition to existing plug-ins such as Subscribe and the Like button that allow users to see friend activity across the site — a “Want” button would likely allow members to see what items others in their network want to purchase.

PanARMENIAN

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