50,000 websites adopt Facebook ‘like’ button in one week

Over 50,000 websites have adopted Facebook’s new social plugins, which include the soon to be ubiquitous “Like” button, one week after the website announced its ambitions to become the nexus of the web, via its Open Graph API.

Last week Facebook launched social plugins with just 75 partners, including CNN and the New York Times, which allow users to “like” or “recommend” content across the web without having to sign into their accounts.

On its developer’s blog, the company claimed that over 50.000 websites have since adopted the plugins, meaning that over 400 websites are signing up for the service every hour.

Last week at f8, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed his plans to make Facebook the center of the web by introducing the Open Graph API, which allows web developers to very easily integrate a number of Facebook features into their websites.

Publishers are eager to add “like” buttons to their sites, since every time a user “likes” a piece of content it creates a link back from the users’ Facebook page. Websites can also display the most relevant content to any user based on their friends and likes, which adds up to more web traffic.