Facebook becoming a major source of content distribution

It seems that social network Facebook, formally a place for you to just catch up with friends, has somehow turned into a major content stream over the past six months, and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.

Facebook announced last week that it had passed the 400 million user threshold, and it seems that this network that now touts a population larger than the United States, is hungry for content to read.  No longer satisfied with just sharing drunken photos from parties, Facebook users are sharing a staggering five billion pieces of content from around the Web per week.  This is a five -fold increase over this past July.

This massive increase in shared content is probably due in large part to the increasing frequency with sites have been adding “Share” buttons to sites.  Similar in nature to the Digg and ReTweet buttons you see everywhere, the Facebook Share button allows you to send content to your account with ease, becoming a new source of traffic for blogs around the Web.

With the Facebook user base showing no signs of slowing its growth, these share numbers are sure to continue to grow.

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