Despite ongoing questions about privacy, Facebook’s new social plugins continue to expand their footprint across the web, with the company announcing on Tuesday that more than 100,000 websites have now deployed them.
The plugins –- which allow websites to add Facebook-powered social features without requiring users to log in –- were announced less than a month ago at Facebook’s developer conference, and attracted more than 50,000 publishers in the first week.
Some of those publishers are now seeing big traffic gains. Facebook says that The Washington Post has seen its Facebook referral traffic climb 290%, while IMDb has doubled the number of visitors it is seeing via Facebook as users “like” movies in droves.
Certainly, numbers like that are going to keep publishers experimenting with Facebook’s new features as a way to drive more engagement and traffic to their sites. Of course, that could all change if the user backlash against instant personalization continues to grow. For now though, Facebook’s path to web domination seems to be on track, and perhaps even progressing ahead of schedule.