Had enough of Liking? That’s cool, because Facebook’s just announced a new trick: Sending.
The new feature was unveiled yesterday on the site’s developers blog, and it’s been introduced to deal with something Facebook isn’t well known for: sharing privately.
The Like button, as used on Facebook itself and on thousands of other websites too, does two things: it tells your friends that you’ve found something and liked it, plus it tells them what it is. The act of sharing is public, and plastered all over your profile.
But, in the words of Facebook’s Abe Parvand:
“But there are many times when people want to share something with just certain people. So … we’re introducing the Send button, the easiest way to privately share things.”
When you click a Send button, a Facebook-style popup window appears with a summary of the page you found the button on. Fill in a message of your own, add some recipients (who all have to be on Facebook, of course), and Send. Sounds like email. Yeah. But this is for the generation that scorns email.
Send has been launched on 50 partner websites; doubtless you’ll be seeing it on a web page near you soon.