Facebook has released a list of the 40 news stories that users shared most during 2011.
Some of the most popular stories shared by Facebook's 800 million-strong-and-growing population covered such diverse topics as zodiac symbols, touching videos, Steve Jobs, animals, natural disasters and more. According to the Telegraph, the top story (see slideshow) was shared more than 600,000 times.
Lost Remote notes that all 40 stories have several things in common. "Nearly all feature a short, grabby headline that explains the story well," wrote Lost remote. "All stories are [also] from major news organizations with good-sized FB pages (reach matters)."
Indeed, stories on Facebook's list came from either the New York TImes, CNN, Yahoo, The Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal or Washington Post. CNN alone served up 10 of the links and Yahoo boasted 12.
In September, Facebook unveiled a "new class of social apps" aimed at making content discovery easier than ever before. If the user wishes, new songs he's listening to or an article he's reading via a Facebook app will be posted to the New Ticker, where friends will see this interaction and be able to read the same article or listen to the same song. The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Yahoo News, for example, already take advantage of Facebook's app platform.
Take a look at the top 15 most-shared stories on Facebook in 2011 (below). Visit Facebook to view the entire list of the top 40 most-shared news stories from the past year.
Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly listed Facebook's membership at 800,000 users. We regret the confusion.