Have you ever visited a website and wanted to share it with just a group of your Facebook friends, or a handful of friends on Facebook along with a few family members via email? Today Facebook launched a “Send” button to join the famed “Like” button, giving Facebook users a more private way to share websites and blog posts with a limited number of friends on Facebook, whether it be a group or just a handful of friends and family. The “Send” button is designed to replace the classic “E-mail to a friend” button on popular websites, and has already been integrated with 50 partner sites including The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and The Huffington Post. The plugin is also available to all site developers if you would like to install it on your site. (If you’re so inclined, visit the Facebook Developer blog for instructions.)

Facebook announced the new “Send” button on their blog, highlighting that it’s designed to share sites on the web with certain friends on Facebook, instead of all your friends:

“A year ago, we launched the Like button, which gives you a quick way to share the things you find on the web with all your friends. But there are times when you find something that you only want to share with a few specific people.

Say you’re on Orbitz and want to tell your roommates about a great idea for a summer vacation, or you come across a Huffington Post article that you only want to share with people at work. With the new Send button, now you can share things with any of your Groups or individual friends on Facebook”

With the Send button, you can choose to send via email in addition to selecting groups and friends on Facebook to share with a website or blog post. While some might think this will kill email, this was also the fear when Facebook launched the revamp of Facebook Messages earlier this year. As most of the business world still revolves around email, the death of email to the rise of Facebook Messages is never going to happen. The idea of sharing that great gift idea for Mother’s Day that you found on 1-800-Flowers.com with the rest of the family via Facebook would be useful, but many of us already do that – with email. I’m not sure any similar group, especially one with a cross section of generations, will be responsive to switching how we share and respond to ideas as a group. For the rest of us, I’m sure many will continue to do what we do now, copy and paste the URL into instant messages – Facebook Chat or otherwise.

Facebook’s Send button essentially forces website users who want to send the article via email to do so using the Facebook platform – and not any other email service. It’s a nice attempt for Facebook to stay relevant by controlling how Facebook users communicate while also adding a few more metrics for website developers using the Send button. (Each “send” goes toward the “like” count.) But will the “send” button really have such an intended impact? Would you use the Send button to share a website or blog with a group, friends, or family? Let us know what you think of the new feature in the comments.