Clothing retailers American Eagle and sister company Aerie have teamed with MediaFORGE to produce an interesting widget that allows Facebook users to browse merchandise directly in news feed updates. The widget also links directly to the AE and Aerie Web sites to make it easy to purchase the items found in the browser windows.

The widget features a “play” button that opens up a larger window where users can scroll through multiple featured products. Clicking on the products sends users directly to the retail Web sites where they can learn more about the items and make purchases.

Both the American Eagle and Aerie widgets are displayed in the companies’ news feeds and are easily shared in Facebook users’ personal updates. The American Eagle and Aerie pages are already popular amongst Facebook fans, with AE holding more than 684,000 fans, one of the highest among clothiers. Aerie currently has a little more than 178,000 fans. Each page has seen a slight increase in activity since the launch of the news feed applications last week.

A few retailers are experimenting with similar applications, such as the one recently implemented by The Limited and produced by Resource Interactive. The Off The Wall widget does not include the ability to browse multiple products, at least not yet, and has to date only featured a single item or offer.