Question

The Like Button seems like a very specific, and not very elegant in my opinion, solution to allowing users to post a web page to their Facebook profile. You have two options: 1) Use the iFrame solution, which allows very little flexibility in functionality, integration or appearance or 2) the XFBML solution which requires loading the entire Facebook javascript SDK just for one little “share this” button.

Is the Like Button the only way that is currently supported by Facebook to allow sharing of content to a user’s Facebook profile? It seems to be the only method mentioned anywhere in the Facebook developer documentation, and I’ve had trouble finding any alternatives elsewhere on the internet.

Answer 1

There was a service called Facebook Share:

http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=<your url>&t=<your title>

I guess it’s still working but I’m seeing people having troubles using it and Facebook is forcing developers to use the Like Plugin.

Now:

1. Most likely your visitors will have the Facebook JS Library cached on their browsers
2. Facebook uses CDNs and their servers are super fast
3. Even if it doesn’t fit in your design, don’t forget that users are used to it
4. You can create a Facebook Application and use the Graph API but it’s way more complicated
5. Don’t use their services!