Facebook Connect, a product that ties a user’s Facebook account to other sites on the Internet, was first announced on May 9, more than five months ago. Digg was announced as a launch partner.
It’s a strategically important product, with competition from both Google and MySpace. So the big question is, how is it doing?
Facebook Platform Is Dead! Long Live Facebook Platform!
Facebook Platform continues to evolve, which mainly means pushing applications developed by third parties farther and farther away from the home and profile pages. Some Facebook employees have said privately that the platform is dead. Many developers agree.
Facebook’s internal struggle over the role of the Platform going forward may be nearing a conclusion. Facebook’s new music initiative will send a clear signal one way or the other as the company decides to either build it themselves or partner with developers.
But Facebook Connect is the new Facebook Platform. Instead of bringing third party apps into Facebook, Connect brings Facebook functionality into those third party services. Those sites get to leverage Facebook’s social graph to help them connect users. In return, Facebook gets lots of user data and cements its position as the owner of canonical profiles (meaning real users, real data) and their friend list.
So Who’s Adopted Facebook Connect So Far?
In late July more details were given on Facebook Connect, and 25 more launch partners were added. ABC Television Group (plus Disney), Amiando, CBS (including CNET and The Insider), Digg, Disney, Flock, Hulu, IAC (CitySearch, College Humor, Evite, Vimeo), Kongregate, Loopt, Plaxo, Radar, Red Bull, Seesmic, SocialThing (now part of AOL), StumbleUpon, Twitter, Six Apart, Uber and Xobni were all announced as launch partners, along with a statement that the service would go live in the coming months.
Of those partners, two have integrated with Facebook Connect, although data on activities is not yet sent back to Facebook for inclusion in the News Feed: The Insider and Red Bull.
In addition, a few other sites have gone live with Facebook Connect that weren’t in the initial launch group. These include CNN’s The Forum site, MyBarackObama, Indiegogo, GlobalGrind, ConnectedWeddings and Govit.
So What About The Other 24 Launch Partners?
We’ve spoken with many of the announced launch partners to understand if, and when, they will integrate with Facebook Connect. Some are in process now. Others have expressed some concern that Facebook will do a “bait and switch” by changing Facebook Connect down the road to something less interesting, or more onerous, to them (like they’ve arguably done with Facebook Platform).
None of the launch partners that we spoke with have told us that they definitively will not be integrating Facebook Connect. But few of them were willing to specify a date they’d be launching.
Facebook says more integrations are coming soon.
Did they communicate their concerns directly to Facebook?
It appears that there is a reluctance to fully and openly discuss concerns and fears directly to others.
Perhaps Facebooks execs will read this and be proactive about contacting and giving assurances to those partners
I have yet to try Facebook Connect, but from the info in this blog post… it seems very likely that FC will make Ping.fm redundant. Hmm… let’s see what will happen
Please elaborate…
I used to work for a company that tried to build a user base for its products using Facebook. Sadly, the company is no longer around.
I’ve always wondered how any business can put their trust in the *FREE* services provided by a third party. What’s in it for Facebook? What’s in it for me? What kind of tech support can you *REALLY* expect when the price is 0? We see the answer to that all the time, when Facebook pulls down their platform mid-afternoon to make some unscheduled changes. And it’s not just Facebook — MySpace, etc. do the same thing.
What if Facebook were to *CHARGE* developers for access to its user base on a subscription basis? Putting a premium on access to the valuable demographic data of its 100 million+ user base would not only provide a lucrative revenue stream for Facebook, but it would ease all third party concerns of ownership and accountability. Unless I’m mistaken, Facebook Connect does NOT allow me to data mine their users’ information — so how the hell am I supposed to build a business around it if I can’t use it for targeted marketing? Now, if Facebook charged me for data mining rights, suddenly their platform is a lot more attractive from a business standpoint. I would have a sales rep I can call when they don’t meet their end of the bargain. And they would have a buzzing Accounts Receivable department that would be doing more than processing payment for WooMe display ads at $0.02 CPM.
Of course, charging for access to the platform and licensing the data to me in this manner would have a few consequences:
(1) This strategy would shut out the “little guy” — small hobbyist game developers, etc.. For them, Facebook could continue to offer the same shitty platform with the same shitty SLA. They would be well advised to not put all their eggs in Facebook’s basket, as the old saying goes, and to marginalize Facebook’s role in their product as much as possible. Oh, and can you say “upsell”? Hey, if you don’t like what you get for free, then PAY FOR IT, sucker!
(2) Privacy concerns — Facebook users might feel as though they are being bought and sold. But banks, insurance companies, etc. do this all the time. Just ask Acxiom how much money they made last quarter doing this. Of course, rationalization by precedence is not a valid argument. Then again, the 100 million people who signed up for Facebook really didn’t expect Zuckerberg was in it just to see all their drunken party pics, now did they?
there are many companies ,who sell user data,but they dont disclose it.So ,we cant decide if some company is selling data.
Secondly,as far as earning directly from users is concerned ,people dont want to pay for social networking things.They would love to shift to other services.
Please criticize if I am wrong.
I thought PublicRelations was banned from the comment boards.
One question I’ve had with Facebook connect is what information will show up from the other sites on my Facebook profile. I don’t necessarily want my business contacts to know how much immature College Humor I watch.
I agree with the sensitivity of information that might be passed around. Although, I don’t think I’ve yet to see a Facebook Connect(ed) site/app. Nor do I hear a lot of buzz surrounding it.
Dave, all communication between Connect sites and Facebook is opt-in.
How granular are the controls that determine what is opt-in?
Facebook will get more user now and have great potential.
http://www.oxyshopping.com
My guess is that everybody would be happier with an open standard, as OpenID. Now that Facebook Connect has risen the bar in terms of end-user usability, the Open-x initiatives have a clear competition. One that it will eventually win.
As you pointed out, the “launch” partners are concerned about Facebook’s role. They don’t want a “Microsoft of Social Profiles”, not after we all have seen whichs goods open interfaces and open data creates for us all.
A lock-in in an open Internet is the single worst thing one company could ever do. If you rely too much at the services of a certain company, and this company goes down or changes its mind, you will sink. Why? Because another company will copy your model (really fast), and enter the market avoiding the pitfall you’re trapped into. And take the market.
Would I trust Facebook? After all they’ve done the their arguably “fair” Platform? Rather not.
Facebook Connect will soon be marginal, but serve as an igniter for more convenient Open-X implementations. Thank you Facebook!
Facebook – nice product, shame about the assholes who run it.
I’ve been trying to develop a Facebook Connect app, and one of the things I’ve found frustrating is the way the timetable for launch keeps slipping. It was meant to be live in “late summer”. Then at the end of September there was a note saying that you would be able to fill out a form to apply for your app to go live in early/mid October. And now in the last few days they say that you can e-mail them if you want to launch a site.
Maybe this is unfair, but it seems to me that the platform isn’t really ready. Perhaps this is one of the factors in the partners not launching sites yet.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Facebook Connect is potentially very important – I just wish their plans for launch were communicated rather better.
Great news,
Now facebok is going to be a BigTree in the world.Facebook will get more traffic with it.
Me from India http://www.iboozi.com
Blogger Experience Share,Discuss,Get help.
Im not a huge fan of the Facebook platform, and i just think facebook is going over the top with too many useless apps. Outside development is great but i think it still has to be controlled.
Steven
http://crenk.com
Something that’s been unclear since FB Connect first appeared: what benefits does it actually provide over the current Facebook API?
The FB APIs have always allowed 3rd party web sites to integrate with Facebook.
FriendFeed, for example, prompts you to add their Facebook app during signup on their site, and doing so provides the benefit of keeping your FF friends list in sync with FB. FriendFeed also publishes to the Facebook feed.
The standard Facebook API also lets any 3rd party web site pull in a user’s profile image and profile data. The standard API can even be used to allow a user’s FB credentials to serve as credentials for the site (supposedly one of the new benefits of FBConnect). See the home page of upnext.com for an example.
So what does FBConnect enable that cannot be done with the standard API?
i agree… I’ve always wondered this myself.
I feel as though all the data and authentication going on with FB connect, could be fully achieved with the standard FB platform.
but I have yet to delve deep into the FB connect code/ documentation.
I agree. Does anybody know the answer to this question?
Dynamic privacy.
Users now have the ability to take their privacy settings with them to 3rd party sites. With the API you have no way of knowing what that user wants to show outside of Facebook — with Connect you are giving users a global way to protect their privacy.
Hmm, not sure what you mean. The Facebook API obeys any permissions already set up by the user. E.g., if the user wants to hide his or her birthday within Facebook, the API will obey that. Are you suggesting the user can show different things to regular facebook apps vs. what it shows to each FB Connect site? How important is that?
I have been watching Facebook Connect with interest (as well as Google Friend Connect launched within the same week). At the time I wondered why Facebook was doing it, as it seemed to give more reasons to spend time away from the Facebook site. Sure, they get the user data and store the social graph, but their revenues are advertising based and that can’t easily work away from site.
I wonder whether they are having the same thoughts?
By the way, to whomever suggested OpenID and Open-x (such as OpenSocial) may provide a better alternative, there has been barely any more activity on that platform for an age either. How many OpenSocial apps are there is use? And how many sites can I log into using OpenID?
For sure the world needs a centralised identity and social graph provider that the rest of use can use to “socialise” our sites. But I don’t see anyone credible volunteering for that role. I thought Microsoft or Google might want it, but neither have stepped forward. The Genome Project in the Russia made some great noises about a beta in October, but not much since.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Open ID is the way forward, no doubt. We need an independent 3rd party standard for such an a service. Trust Facebook…you must be high! I think it is crystal clear that as far as trust goes, Facebook ranks very very very low.
Businesses need (to now more than ever) focus on their technology, user base and revenues, not add Facebook technology. With that said Open ID has momentum and is independent, lets all move forward to adopt it!
I’d guess facebook will allow users to specify what to expose to outside of facebook. The new platform may run with the old in parallel but require higher credibility of developers/partners. I certainly trust apps from trackable sources.
I WOULD NO LONGER TRUST FACEBOOK!
I said this at the beginning of the facebook app gold rush. As developers we are putting our destiny’s in other hands. And we got screwed over it. A lot of us were in middle of launching apps when new facebook destroyed the app model.
Now the same will happened with facebook connect. Unless facebook is willing to sign a binding contract with the sites that the terms will remain the same in perpetuity no one should sign up with facebook connect.
Don’t trust facebook!
We’ve been staying as close to the leading edge as a small company can with FB Connect and are very impressed with the functionality they’re providing. I understand everyone’s concern with the “bait and switch” but there are definitely several SV companies that would have to admit it was some pretty tasty bait last time.
I have no illusions that this will be an inflection point for us, but I think lowering the barrier to registration and being able to seamlessly inject our users’ contributions into their feeds is very compelling. Look for our launch of Connect very soon…
Dan Gill
CEO Huddler.com
http://greenhome.huddler.com
Facebook is going to lose their luster in the marketplace, especially with APPS developers. Their app initiative has been a failure. People will find it hard to trust them going forward.
im having a facebook account in a while. but i only had less than 20 friends. I dont know why i dont like them. sorry facebook but i know you can live without me of course. lol
Is FriendConnect dead?
I hardly hear anything about now….nor do I know anybody using it.
An independent third party connect platform is the way to go. I do not trust FB Connect as FB can easily do a “bait and switch” strategy and it unfair to others.
Blogger.com banned in Turkey!
http://elmaalts...nned-in-turkey/
Considering how much they’ve screwed their regular app developers with the new revision the site in the past few months, it’s not a far cry to assume they might end up doing that to the connect partners.
Sadly, it seems that Facebook no longer cares. The dev team over there will make API changes without announcing them sometimes or providing adequate information in some cases (like when they decided to roll out the user id variable changes and broke damn near every app on the site for a few hours), they just don’t care.
Beyond that, the apps interface for Facebook is dreadful at this point. Actually, dreadful is an understatement, people can lose track of the apps they installed if they don’t bookmark them themselves, I mean, it’s freaking ridiculous how far Facebook has gone in the name of attempting to appease some users and compete with OpenSocial.
I sometimes wonder how many collective brain cells they used over there looking at the redesign files they proposed vs. the ones they used. [/Rant]
Part of the big issue is the archaic legal requirements that they keep changing. Our Facebook Connect is ready to launch, but has been held up by ongoing legal issues, changing requirements, and data sharing discussions.
We’re not using fbConnect but we are using their API in a similar fashion over at http://www.ROOV.com. So far the feedback has been TREMENDOUS!
seems like i am not able to connect.. shows 404 error..
http://www.vimeo.com/1971430
Since it’s on video I guess I can say publicly that we’re planning on having a fairly rich Facebook Connect experience launched before the end of 2008.
–Joe
Integrating with Facebook Connect is a non-trivial task, especially if you are trying to make it fit with an existing user base. While the UI is a step above OpenID, the technical implementation is a lot more complicated. I imagine that’s the main reason it’s taking so long for everyone to get connected.
Excellent post, Mike. I hadn’t heard anything about “The Facebook Platform is Dead” — that is surprising. Would you consider puytting someone on this important story, i.e.
– trying to get an answer (or researching) the question above re. the real differences between the classic API and FBconnect?
– getting some opinions from FB re. all these trust issues mentioned here?
This was a bit of an eye opener to me after the excitement over
FB apps oiver the last year.
Hmm, wasn’t aware of Facebook Connect. Guess I need to take my head out of the sand. But of course I’m not a big Facebook user…. sorry, I know, I know….
Momma
feature blogger at Engineer a Debt Free Life
http://engineer...e.blogspot.com/
I think that Facebook is so much different from other social network sites, in which it is geared toward a specific demographic (adolescents and young adults) on such a large scale. I think that Facebook Connect is valuable in the sense of sheer strength in numbers, but as a blogger, a college student, and a Facebook user; the developers need to realize that Facebook users do not care about other forms of social media for the most part. So coming up with a solution to that, is a problem that is going to plague the developers for some time.
Europe’s Amiando has gone live with Facebook Connect as part of their viral ticketing system, as we reported recently:
http://www.exci...ing-facebo.html
I don’t see facebook connect on obama’s site.
I suppose the only correct answer is “only time will tell”!
My 2 cents worth, Facebook has to embrace 3rd party developers as its been proven time and time again that a single company can not provide the best products/services in every genre. Main reason why PCs dominated even though Apple had a superior product. And why the iPhone with its strong app dev following will continue its success even though it’ll have many new competitors.
Facebook is most likely having internal debates on how to walk this fine line of open platform vs chore features, but someone has to take charge and publicly state that its imperative for FB’s success to always provide a fair platform for 3rd parties. For example our Facebook app Birthday Calendar with 9M users is the top app in its genre. However, we don’t enjoy the same delivery/communication channels that Facebook enjoys for its own virtual gifts. At some point this unfair advantage will frustrate enough developers and they’ll start looking elsewhere to focus their efforts.
So what will probably happen is similar to Microsoft, Facebook will have to find its “Office” cash cow. They should publicly annouce present & future core products and leave everything else alone. One big difference to note is that “cash” portion of cash cow. MS charges for their suite, but FB will most likely never be able to do that. Open platform and business greed have never mixed well. Lets see if FB will prove it wrong! I guess, we’ll just have to go back to “only time will tell!”.
Nasser G. – BigDates Solutions
I’ve looked at using Facebook Connect for one of our websites, but as several has said, the timetable is slipping (for a while they wrote mid october for launch), and now I have to mail them to get my application “reviewed” to use the service.
I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like developing a tool that might just be worthless and depending on another partys approval.
All approval systems are really bad. Windows, the web etc wouldn’t be so rich in content if there would’ve been an approval system. I know Apple is using this for the IPhone, and I don’t like that system either.
I can’t wait for OpenSocial and Android to grow!
Seems like there is a confusion regarding the way of implementation of facebook connect, many of the application that say that they have implemented connect is actually listed as facebook apps when added and not had external website.
Specially in case of connectedweddings and indiegogo it ends up as facebook apps where as Govit and globalgrind seems like been implemented correctly. They are listed in external website in my apps list. Well I could not find anything for mybarackobama.com.
Guess the implementation is being a big hurdle here. I think thats the reason for it to get known. Anyone at facebook reading this….
Michael
We’ve seen pretty good success with facebook connect so far. We are excited to be one of the first sites to launch on the platform.
Facebook.. Myspace… Friendster…
We’re developing social shopping Service..
Lookeey.com will be open soon…
Here is the bottom line.
1. Facebook made a bad strategic decision when they launched their app platform, and not require developers to pay to be part of the FB Platform. This (in my mind) was the key to their potential revenue model. This is why they changed their GUI – to minimize the presence of the 3rd party apps. They are trying to slowly go back to having control and offering the “most” value – and throw their app developers under the bus.
2. Now, they are hesitant to expand FB connect, because they don’t want to allow 3rd parties to get all the benefit, and potentially carve out more revenue that FB can own.
Mark my words – over the next year, you will begin to see the so-called “open” platform pitch – will become much more driven by need for FB to drive revenue, and “partners’ will fade, and FB will try to retract the vision and promises they have sold us over the last few years.
Wait, I remember this one, it’s called Microsoft Passport, right?!
The entire internet does not have to be housed under the Facebook umbrella. You want to chat, use email or a chat program. You want funny videos, go to Youtube. They have way more than the top 25 or whatever recommended by Slide or Facebook. And since when did spam become cool? Most funny jokes and pictures on peoples walls are drivel. If I sent you something like that in email it would be spam, but on Facebook it’s OK, wtf? You want music it already exists with Raphsody and iLike and such. If you’re gonna click through page after page of Facebook, you may as well be on the internet.
The company I’m with will be announcing our release of Connect next week. The Facebook team has been great to work with along the way and our customers are eager to get the feature – in fact we should have four sites live on Tuesday.
For the under 25 crowd most of their “conversations” start on Facebook. Connect is a great feature that allows sites to become part of the conversation. Read up on it and embrace the new world.
I don’t think I’m even qualified to read this blog but I am trying to understand this and I just can’t get my head around it – even after all the comments here. Im not a developer but I have just launched a site and am struggling to understand the benefits and risks associated with Facebook Connect versus the dev. of a Facebook app? What do you compromise with Connect? Is there some risk in investing in an app because Facebook aren’t looking like they will play ball in the future with 3rd party developers?