Zuck on this, Twitter! Now Facebook switches on embedded posts

Facebook users' status updates, videos and photos can now be embedded in websites beyond the free-content advertising network.

At present, only a small number of publishers including CNN and Huffington Post can use the feature, however. But once they've tirelessly worked the hamster wheel, Facebook said world+dog will get to fiddle with the function - which is similar to Twitter's 'embed this tweet' button.

The Mark Zuckerberg-run ad-jammed network hopes to get its users sharing more things on the web, ultimately injecting itself into online chatter and leading surfers back to the ranch. Famously, the company is known for keeping much of its network's content walled off to search engines and so on.

But recently it appears to have picked a fight with Twitter, by moving into using hashtags and now adding embedded posts to get more of the stuff shared on the network flagged up to those people who aren't part of Facebook's 1.15 billion-strong stalker army.

As for the hashtag feature recently added to the service, a quick click on #RoyalBabyBoy within Facebook reveals just how effectively it's being used - well, that is by advertisers, anyway. ®