Facebook has teamed up with Amazon to create a new social aspect to the world's biggest online retailer.

Once you've linked your Facebook and Amazon accounts up you can have a look at the sorts of films, TV shows and books that your buddies have listed on their profiles and there is also a handy birthday section telling you what friends' birthdays are coming up.

When you click a friend you get personalised recommendations for them, based on their Facebook data, and Amazon also tries to find wish-lists for people with the same name. Handy if you've got pals with names like Marshall McSweenytod or Rolverdor Ariathry, not so if your pals have common names such as Dave Smith, Gary Jones or John Brown.

Obviously, for the system to work - you and your Facebook friends need to have filled out the likes section of the profile page.

Facebook and Amazon are keen to point out that no private data is shared between the sites. Amazon states specifically that it will not share your purchase history with Facebook, nor try to connect with your friends.

It's actually a pretty neat little feature that the two web giants have come up with. If you can shake off the privacy fears that seem to be etched into people's brains when it comes to Facebook and sharing, then you might want to give it a try.

(We couldn't find a link for the setup on the UK Amazon site, but you can log in with your UK credentials over on Amazon US)