Facebook sets up Google-war with vast expansion through Open Graph

Facebook has announced plans to spread its influence more widely across the internet by weaving its service into all websites.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of the social networking site which has 400 million regular users worldwide, has set his sights on beating Google.

Mr Zuckerberg described how users would be guided around the web by their connections and interests rather than a search engine.

"The web is at a really important turning point now," Mr Zuckerberg said at a conference for web and software developers in San Francisco. "Most things aren’t social and they don’t use your real identity. This is really starting to change."

Mr Zuckerberg called the new software platform, Open Graph, "the most transformative thing we’ve ever done for the web".

The chief tool will be the "Like" icon. Users will be able to click on the button next to an article to share it on their Facebook profiles without leaving the other website.

The plans could backfire however if it fails to assuage privacy fears over the new service.

Greg Sterling, an internet analyst who also writes for searchengineland.com, said: "How many people are really going to want all this information about them shared? That’s the big unanswered question here."

Mr Zuckerberg said that users would have complete control over what information is private.

(Published by Times Online- April 22, 2010)