8. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing computer program code that comprises: a module configured to maintain a user account and a set of connections to other users of the social networking system for each of a plurality of users of a social networking system; a formatting module configured to: receive a sharing request for sharing content from a web page, the sharing request initiated by a sharing user via a sharing control outside of the social networking system and received by the social networking system; responsive to initiation of the sharing request via the sharing control, provide an interface to the sharing user enabling the sharing user to provide sharing parameters, the interface served to the sharing user by a server of the social networking system; and receiving from the sharing user via the interface a request and one or more sharing parameters for communicating the content from the web page to one or more other users of the social networking system; and a transmission module configured to: transmit a communication containing at least a portion of the content to one or more other users with whom the sharing user has established a connection using one or more communication channels of the social networking system subject to the one or more sharing parameters.
8. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing computer program code that comprises: a module configured to maintain a user account and a set of connections to other users of the social networking system for each of a plurality of users of a social networking system; a formatting module configured to: receive a sharing request for sharing content from a web page, the sharing request initiated by a sharing user via a sharing control outside of the social networking system and received by the social networking system; responsive to initiation of the sharing request via the sharing control, provide an interface to the sharing user enabling the sharing user to provide sharing parameters, the interface served to the sharing user by a server of the social networking system; and receiving from the sharing user via the interface a request and one or more sharing parameters for communicating the content from the web page to one or more other users of the social networking system; and a transmission module configured to: transmit a communication containing at least a portion of the content to one or more other users with whom the sharing user has established a connection using one or more communication channels of the social networking system subject to the one or more sharing parameters. 28. The computer program product of claim 8 , further comprising: a tracking module configured to obtain a measure of popularity of the shared content and to display the tracked measure of popularity to one or more users of the social networking system.