Facebook Launches "Fan Box", Its First Official Widget.

Today, Facebook launched the "Fan Box", yet another way to extend what you're doing on Facebook, off of Facebook.

Think of the Fan Box as a widget (4 simple lines of code) that Facebook Pages administrators can implement on other sites to enhance connectivity to those Pages on Facebook. In a nutshell:

Brands can use the Fan Box to recruit new fans in a more engaging way then just posting a link to "visit the brand on Facebook".

Any content that you want to feature in the Fan Box is customizable/choosable by the Facebook Page administrator

While only the Facebook Page administrator can generate the code/customize content, anyone can grab the code to embed the Fan Box on their own site.

One potential nice side effect of this is that the more places the Fan Box is displayed, the more potentially positive impacts it could have on the Facebook Fan Page's search ranking -- in other words, more pages will be linking to it (this helps add relevancy to search engine results).

The Fan Box is available right now, if you're a Facebook Page administrator. Simply look at your Page's profile picture, and right below it will be a button that launches the Fan Box creation wizard.

Ironically, just a day after Slide announced that they are going full-bore into the branded app business, Facebook launches a widget.

This is yet another example of the “everything is connected to everything else” (or at east Facebook) mentality changing the way we communicate with people, and the ways they communicate each other.

The recommendation here? Experiment with the Fan Box and see how/if it impacts your Page performance. Why not? It's free.