If you've ever wanted to share an article on The Root with several friends, you'll appreciate the new feature we've added to the site that should make it a lot easier. There's a new button for Facebook's ''Like'' option at the top left of stories on The Root. Now by clicking on the Like button, you can let many of your friends who are also on Facebook know that you have read a story on The Root and that you like it.
The new function is a result of a partnership between Slate Group sites (including Slate, The Big Money and The Root) and Facebook, to debut a new tool, Facebook Social Plugins, which makes it easier for our readers to share favorite articles with friends.
With our new Facebook tool, you can ''Like'' our articles and automatically share them with your friends on our site and on Facebook. Just press the Facebook ''Like'' button and a post saying that you ''Like'' the story will appear on your Facebook wall and as part of your news feed.
The new ''Most Liked'' widget on the right side of our pages also presents The Root's most popular stories among Facebook users, while the ''Recently Shared'' box shows which of your friends have given a thumbs-up to our stories. Perhaps the best feature of the new application is that when you are logged into Facebook, the ''Recently Shared'' toolbar shows you a feed of The Root stories your Facebook friends have liked.
As with most launches, there are some bugs: the Facebook Like button does not currently work perfectly with our commenting system. Those of you who have used Facebook to comment on The Root before and have a Root login saved in your cookies should notice no change. But new users who haven't commented on The Root before won't be able to sign in using Facebook. Instead, you can sign in and comment on JS-Kit, our existing comment system. We hope to have the sign-in bug resolved in the next week.
New features will be added to the Facebook Like function in the coming weeks, and we will let you know about them as they are implemented. Let us know what you think of the Facebook feature in the comments section or send us an e-mail at efeedback@theroot.com.