SmallBusinessNewz

We've been talking a lot about Google Places on SmallBusinessNewz lately, and while I've been writing a great deal about Facebook for WebProNews, we've probably neglected the subject here at SBN since the company announced its big plans moving forward - plans which have huge implications for small businesses.

Do you like what Facebook is doing with the web? Share your thoughts.

In case you've missed it, last week at the Facebook Developer Conference f8, Facebook essentially laid out its plans for how it will take over the web. This is called the Open Graph, in which every participating site is connected via Facebook. Along with this plan and a new API, the company launched some new social plug-ins for sites to make their sites more social.

Many sites have already rushed to implement the plugins that fit best within their strategies, and many more will follow. More plugins will probably be on the way as well. Developers will continue to use the API and come up with various ways to make the Open Graph useful, and cause a snowball effect of ideas and innovation all centered around (or within) Facebook.

For businesses, there is much to gain. For one, the traffic, which Faceobok has always been good for will probably get even better. The most important plugin appears to be the "like" button. When you have a like button on your site, and someone clicks it, all of their friends can then see that, and possibly like it themselves. Then all of their friends can see it and so on. Not it's not that different than previously existing share buttons from Facebook in that respect. The main difference is that these remain in the user's profile, rather than briefly showing up in the news feed only to disappear shortly thereafter.

I would recommend browsing through Facebook's social plugins if you have not done so thus far, and seeing if there is one that you can put to use.

Facebook is also now sending brick and mortar businesses decals to put in their windows. We don't have many details yet about how many businesses can get them, what the criteria are, etc. At this point, it appears to be limited, but that will likely become much more widespread in the future. The stickers point customers to a business' Facebook page, and once they "like" your page, you can be in direct connection with them (the main advantage this has over the Google stickers we've talked about in the past).