Yahoo has extended its social news tool Yahoo Activity, which uses Facebook’s Open Graph to enable easy sharing of news stories, beyond the US to the UK and Europe.
The app, which makes it easy for Facebook users to share Yahoo content, will now be live in Europe, including the UK. The app requires users to sign in via Facebook but then automatically shares on Facebook the content people have been reading, allowing for much faster sharing.In September, Yahoo launched the Yahoo Activity app at Facebook’s F8 developer conference but it has only been available in the US.
According to Yahoo, the app has seen over 11m people opt into using it in the US and it hopes to see a fast take up in Europe.
James Wildman, Yahoo’s UK MD and VP of sales, said, “When Facebook recently unveiled its most-shared stories of 2011 in the US, of the 40 most shared, 12 came from Yahoo.”
In the UK, news organisations including the Guardian and the Independent have also launched apps using Facebook’s Open Graph technology. The Guardian claims its news app has been downloaded by over 4m people, driving daily impressions via Facebook to over 1m.
