Netflix today announced that members in the U.S. can now connect with Facebook and share the shows and movies they watch with friends, after a decades-old law preventing this type of feature was amended earlier this year.

International users have been able to share their Netflix activity on Facebook since Open Graph launched, but U.S. users couldn’t. Instead, they came to know Open Graph as a way for video apps like Socialcam and Viddy to share automatically on their behalf as soon as they clicked a link. This year Facebook is focused on helping users share stories about more long-form content they consume — a movie instead of a 30-second clip, a book instead of a one-off article. Netflix integration is key to building out the video side of this strategy.

Facebook is working on a number of projects that will encourage users to share and discover more movies and TV shows through the social network. Today, perhaps not coincidentally, the company launched a new version Timeline that includes sections for film and television where users can indicate what they like, what they’ve watched and what they want to watch. Apps like Netflix, Hulu and Rotten Tomatoes can plug into these sections and help users fill out their interests.

Then there are structured status updates, which let users tag what they’re watching, reading, drinking, feeling and more, without using a third-party app. This feature is still only available to a small percentage of users, but it’s easy to imagine a lot of people using this in the future. It’s also clear to see how well these posts would work as Sponsored Stories.

With users sharing their Netflix activity, updating their new Timeline sections and sharing what they’re watching via structured status updates, there’s about to be a lot more TV and movie-related stories on Facebook. This will not only improve ad targeting, recommendations and Graph Search, but we could even see Facebook build a new video-focused feed similar to what the social network offers for music so that users can see all movie and TV stories in one place.

First screenshot via  nmixreallygetsme.wordpress.com