Today’s the day that Facebook makes their big press push for their Facebook Connect service, which was first announced last May. The NY Times has a story giving a broad overview of Connect as well as competing services from MySpace (Data Availability) and Google (Friend Connect).
All three services are platforms for third party sites (Digg, Twitter, Citisearch, CBS, whatever) to let users sign in via their favorite social network instead of the normal approach. Some profile information flows with the sign in, which the sites can keep for a period of time. And activity that occurs on the site – Twitters written, Digg stories voted on, restaurant reviews on Citysearch, etc.) can optionally flow back to the user’s activity stream.
What the third party sites get out of these services: easy sign in for users, particularly new users. They can also use the profile data to help users create accounts at their site with little data input. The activity stream information published on the social networks includes links back to their sites. And one of the most interesting features, for Facebook Connect partners: sites can request friend lists from Facebook to help them make more connections on their own services. Digg CEO Jay Adelson recently gushed over the potential of Facebook Connect for his service.
Facebook also gives Connect partners most of the same tools as their application developers to promote their services via the news feed, invites, etc.
But the real value goes to the social networks. These services make users begin to think about their identity in terms of their MySpace profile, or Facebook login as they use it to sign into their favorite services. That makes it even more likely the users will maintain their profiles on those services, add friends, etc.
MySpace in particular wants to own user identities. Their MySpace profile is their name online, which is why they’ve embraced OpenID so completely in recent months. Data Availability and OpenID are two parts to a single strategy.
Facebook is probably less concerned with identity – there is no branded URL for users, for example. But they do want to own the definitive profile for an individual and, more importantly, their social graph. Knowing who you are and who your friends are is the key to their yet-unrealized business model.
And the biggest win of all is this free flow of data back to the social networks, which quite nicely fills out a user’s profile for advertising purposes.
Facebook is moving ahead alone with Connect, using proprietary standards for login and data sharing. They’ve also prohibited Google from trying to get in the middle of things with their Friend Connect service. MySpace, by contrast, is using mostly open standards in their approach, and is working closely with Google to make sure the services work properly together.
The battle for partners is intense. MySpace announced Twitter as a launch partner, but rumor is that Twitter is actually integrating with Facebook first (there’s no reason they can’t offer both, and they probably will). MySpace also announced Yahoo and eBay as launch partners. To date, though, they’ve only launched with Flixster and Eventful.
Facebook becoming a central login platform is the worst thing to ever happen to the internet.
I can think of about a thousand things that happened to the Internet that are much worse than this.
The only worse thing I can think of is ICANN’s upcoming overhaul of the TLD system. My comment was obviously a bit exaggerated though.
Facebook, being the behemoth it has become, can easily position itself as the standard that everybody wants to adopt. But Facebook is a corporation that lives off user data, and besides privacy concerns, it also undermines keep-it-to-yourself efforts such as OpenID. When Facebook is standard, then everybody needs to be on Facebook, and when Facebook is linked with everything else, your own privacy is out of your control.
Another horrible thing that might happen would be lolfacebook users checking in to sites like Digg, whose community is probably the furthest thing from what Facebook is.
Even if facebook is transient I don’t think it really makes a difference since most comments on the web are also transient
Even if facebook is transient I don’t think it really makes a difference since most comments on the web are also transient
The social network profile should be broken into bits, with easily swappable third party walls, status, etc. and the ability to host your own profile. I’d use Facebook for a portion of my social graph, but that’s about it. Mike is right. Facebook being privy to all web activity is frightening, and ultimately, not sustainable.
We’ve had FB Connect up on Govit.com for 6 weeks, and over 60% of new users choose FB Connect. A lot of those people wouldn’t have taken the time to join the site without it. I count this as a win.
And what percentage of that 60% do you actually own? I’d say zero. So, it’s good as a distribution tool for small time sites but real publishers must own that data to realize true value.
I think it would be unwise for any third party site to concede the battleground for user profiles by letting the big three become de facto standards. The web is still very young and the downturn is a perfect time to establish thriving online communities. Web access is a lot cheaper than going out. At the end of the day, superior technology/biz models can reinvent the mouse trap which is the standard web based social networking experience.
the lure of links on Facebook is too strong.
That is for the short run only. FB is a fad.
the Internet is a fad
That puts a lot of value in Facebook, a company that hasn’t proven that it can even pay its bills. In the last two tech cycles, Microsoft and Google have proven themselves financially. If your building something for the long term on the web standards and maybe Google link juice are the only things you need worry about. If what you are building is compelling enough the users will come. Of course you can build applications for the socnets, but it’s an expense that should go into the marketing budget.
yay! I can’t wait to get even more creepy details on my friends’ lives
one login makes it even more terrible when your username and password gets crack.
For a small startup like mine, this is a blessing more than a curse right now. To be able to tap into a bunch of people sounds great. BUT-I wonder what the downside is in the long run. If I don’t transition those profiles to my site am I risking long term success if policies change at FaceBook, My Space or Google?
One other fundamental advantage for using Connect/friend is validated users. Profiles, friend lists, and social network interactions take a long time to build.
A site can use factors like: date of joining facebook, number of wall posts, number of friends, etc, to measure the probability of a person being real and trustable.
So if someone logs in with their facebook credentials and sends an email, that email is very unlikely to be spam. If a person logs in to an online marketplace, that person is less likely to post a fake listing, or sell illegal items. And if a person logs in to a collaborative news site, then that person is unlikely to willingly post a fake story.
I’m still confused where the story is here .. These are previously announced partners and Facebook has said the open version will be rolling out later this month.
…shouldnt Twitter become the backbone to all the social networks?
Facebook and MySpace not the right place for identity ownership. We need someone who isn’t interested in eyeballs to own this stuff. When the motivation is to keep people *in* your website, clicking *your* ads, the potential of the open web will never be realized.
Ground up open platforms like Cliqset are or decentralized solutions like Portable Contacts are the future. We’re going to evolve beyond MySpace and Facebook. Soon.
Facebook is a fad. It’s going to die soon. MySpace is dying. Lori Drew will be jailed and no one wants to use MySpace because it has blood on its hand. Facebook will follow the same path.
I used to use MySpace, no more. I used to use Facebook, no more. I’m using friendster and hi5 now. Much better. Gotten rid of a lot of idiots on Facebook. 0wn3d!
You, sir, are a genius.
This continues a trend of distributed consolidation. After all, just how many different networks can one possibly join that actually have meaning and engagement? And of them, how many times must one reenter their social graph?
This distributed world is changing in a big way and the standard bearer is data portability. Many of the big guys would rather not have it, but the momentum is forcing them to play. If they can’t beat them – then at least they’d like to be in the center of it all. A serious lands-grab is going on right now and the players include all the big guys and more than a few up-and-comers. Time will tell how it all shakes out, but it all potentially spells good news for users.
In any case, now is not the time to sit on the sidelines. Register your opinion. Be an activist. Let your service providers know what is ok and what is not. Infuence your world!
[Mr. Repetti is the CEO/CTO of RadWebTech.com and a member of the board of the International DataPortability organization (www.dataportability.org). Expressions made herein are made individually]
You put a disclosure on blog comments? Seriously?
I find it more odd that he refers to himself as Mr. Repetti.
Cut and paste confusion with my dad? Just wanted to make sure it was clear that this was MY opinion and not an official statement from the DataPortability organization.
This is how Facebook is going to monetize. Once websites like Digg and the rest are fully dependent on Facebook Connect, they will start charging for the service. Digg will have no recourse but to pay.
Hey man wanna borrow this tinfoil hat?
Yeah, I agree. A disclosure is needed
I think you are missing an important development the emergence of consensus around a standard for Meta Data Discovery – XRD out of the XRI (OASIS standard) and W3C Technical Architecture Group fight – having this be an open standard in a recognized standards body and adopted will be highly disruptive to any closed proprietary effort by any player including facebook. Drummond has a good post up about it http://www.equa...ond.name/?p=172
Facebook works for the kids who grew up on it (were in college when the started on it) – the rest of us are kinda creeped out by it. I can’t tell you how many conversations I heard by normal people this summer while at a retreat center commenting on how they didn’t like it. I don’t think they do user testing for the over 30 set or quite frankly care.
Yeah, I’m sure you run with a diverse crowd….XRD and XRI? No offense, but come on?
The most active people I know on Facebook are over 30 and would think you were a bit paranoid. These are college educated, working professionals (lawyers, architects, teachers, etc.) and they simply do not think about it.
“…normal people” and connecting with the prior sentence, you implied the above mentioned people (kids, folks in college, etc) aren’t normal, your comment lost all credibility by just that.
The social graph is no fad, and Facebook is winning that game right now. I think they’ll lose out in the end to a company that builds a reputation for using (and protecting) user data more cleverly than FB ever will. Think databanking (and it won’t be Microsoft).
http://www.read...beat_google.php
Can that be a completely commercial entity or will be an organization closer to wikimedia or mozilla? Intuitively, I think the latter.
There are both positive and negatives regarding the integration of social media networks being linked by a hub like facebook.
I feel that each social network comprises a different audience and therefore should be entitled to individual messages and consideration.
If Facebook is to become a hub I hope they integrate an option to leave selected information off certain social networks depending on the individual circumstance so you can tailor it to your audience.
I don’t think that Facebook and MySpace are the right place for identity ownership.
Myspace kicks them all to the curb.
jess
http://www.anonymity.at.tc
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Seems the issue keeps coming back to ‘identity online’ and for good reason. When it comes down to it though, users DO indeed need to be a bit more aware of what sort of online identity they are creating for themselves. Not only that but how they are securing it online.
Yes, there do need to be standards and it is debatable as to who/what is going to create that standard but in the meantime a lot of online/offline reputations will become casualties in this ambiguous transition.
The real battle is for the mass of post early adopters that are seeing facebook as their first real social network experience. It will be tough to move them when the new super cool facebook killer comes out. (and it will, and the early adopters will flock but the slow and steady users will not move so quickly) I flit from social network to network like a moth to open laptops at a Steve Jobs keynote. But people like my wife who have just recently discovered the power of Facebook, will be tough to sway.
Point Facebook.
But Facebook is so boring. Would much rather hang out on friendfeed.
Just wait for the Facebook and FriendFeed synchronization =)
SO is Connect live yet?
Sounds good however with no way to sign up the feature is still vaporware :\
In the interest of fairness, that is not true. If you read above, you would know that someone from govit[dot]com chimed-in to say the results of FC integration have been positive for them. I checked it out and it’s legit.
Ah ok, the first one tried was Digg and it is still not clear where to use this feature. Citysearch was much easier and did function except for some browser weirdness.
http://www.AnonTalk.com/
Right now facebook is the “it” company but when sooner or later things go south, as in facebook losings its effectiveness, the whole system will come tumbling down.
http://www.yout...h?v=763vmCrRBDg
Facebook has been all talk for half a year…release it PLEASE!
At the end of the day this is about single sign on (SSO), which is always beneficial. However, the login and password pair should be treated as sacrosanct — in essence, by some trusted organization whose mandate is at its core to protect core personal data that may travel along with the login/password.
Nowhere can anyone demonstrate to me that either MySpace or Facebook have the core mandate to protect user privacy. In fact, their growing business models may actually prove antithetical to the users core privacy, since these social networks (and others) will continue to build revenues around 3rd party organizations that want access to the networks’ user base.
The secondary elephant-in-the-room issue is that social networks may or may not have robust enough security models to even allow for secured and protected data. Any system that allows a user to create a profile with a pets or kid’s name as a password is not, in my mind, a secure enough platform. Since both Facebook and MySpace have been hacked frequently enough over the past year alone, I think this is still cause of concern that tens of millions of people may not be adequately aware of as they post personal contact information and pictures of their children as well as connect with people they think they know but who may be Internet predators.
I’m not trying to be the harbinger of gloom and doom here, since I enjoy these and many other social networking platforms. I just think the larger concern with Facebook connect and the like is that people may be making assumptions about how their private data is being protected, when it may not be.
Just wanted to add that Gigya Socialize lets sites use both FaceBook and MySpace with one unified API. Why choose either of the two big social graphs while you can get both with the same effort?
@user x – Its Web1.0 to “own the user” because you have their emails and can spam them till they opt-out of your list. Real owning the user today means earning their loyalty and making them come back.
Facebook Connect will help any web site scale fast, will authenticate with the user’s real identity with dynamic privacy that they can control so the sites can start communicating and knowing their real customers.
@Taylor Norris Every site spend tons of money on site visitors who signup and never return. If 60% signup with Facebook connect, its a high number of people who are ready to be themselves and share that on your site. So whatever you offer must be good.
Facebook and Digg will become uncool like Myspace eventually. No one has figured out to have a meaningful conversation on the web yet. Both are trying though, and I give them that.
I won’t be using any of these login agregators. I use 1Password and extremely secure passwords, agregate my social feeds via my own server, and block all online advertising with browser scripting. Single sign on will appeal to a lot of people, but further down the line they’ll probably regret giving away so much identity related data. More fool them. My hub is my own.
The issue with Facebook solution is that they demand to be to be the primary login solution (stated in the conditions).
We would love to use it, but we can offer it only as an optional solution. We cannot afford to miss the older people, “facebook haters” or the people simply not interested in “fun/family” networks (in some markets it represents a big percentage).
I’m testing Gigya Socialize and that works nicely so far, anybody
tried that ?
I loved fb in the beginning and then they changed the site and it is crap!
Facebook got better data portability here, Facebook got smooth and nicer user experience than any web social networking site, the site got awesome innovations.
Its long overdue lets hope they keep pushing for even more compatible services and yeah it will make FB better and more popular.
cool digg and fb
Lots of buzz, no sites! So, just when is Digg going to do this? Lots of talk, lots of posturing but just like Google Friend Connect, no release of the application.
I was excited and still am, but when I went to the dev site, you have to put all the code together from many pieces. There is no Wordpress plug in and the one that supposedly works from Spain has documentation and video support in Spanish. #%!*
Plus when you try to blunder through the Wordpress Facebook Connect Plugin you get a corrupt ZIP file. (more cussing….)
So once again “Facebook I ask you, where are the sites? I sure ain’t Digging Facebook Connect because there are no connections.
Expect to see my blog as one of the first because if I have to I will write the damn plugin!
I wish things would just be a little more unique and original. Plus even with facebooks new design all these add ons are still such a pest that I rarely use most of the apps.
This could be cool depending on what sites they get on board. Will the big blog hosts join the party?
It’is very cool!
wtf?
So funktioniert Facebook Connect!
that’s cool!!
is very good thank you
The issue with Facebook solution is that they demand to be to be the primary login solution (stated in the conditions).
We would love to use it, but we can offer it only as an optional solution. akyaka otelleri We cannot afford to miss the older people, “facebook haters” or the people simply not interested in “fun/family” networks (in some markets it represents a big percentage).
videolar
sikiş
Lots of buzz, no sites! So, just when is Digg going to do this? Lots of talk, lots of posturing but just like Google Friend Connect, no release of the application. sikiş
I was excited and still am, but when I went to the dev site, you have to put all the code together from many pieces. There is no Wordpress plug in and the one that supposedly works from Spain has documentation and video support in Spanish. #%!*
Plus when you try to blunder through the Wordpress Facebook Connect Plugin you get a corrupt ZIP file. (more cussing….)
So once again “Facebook I ask you, where are the sites? I sure ain’t Digging Facebook Connect because there are no connections.
Expect to see my blog as one of the first because if I have to I will write the damn plugin!
The real battle is for the mass of post early adopters that are seeing facebook as their first real social network experience. It will be tough to move them when the new super cool facebook killer comes out. sikiş videoları (and it will, and the early adopters will flock but the slow and steady users will not move so quickly) I flit from social network to network like a moth to open laptops at a Steve Jobs keynote. But people like my wife who have just recently discovered the power of Facebook, will be tough to sway.
Point Facebook.
@user x – Its Web1.0 to “own the user” because you have their emails and can spam them till they opt-out of your list. Real owning the user today means earning their loyalty and making them come back.
Facebook Connect will help any web site scale fast, will authenticate sikiş videoları with the user’s real identity with dynamic privacy that they can control so the sites can start communicating and knowing their real customers.
@Taylor Norris Every site spend tons of money on site visitors who signup and never return. If 60% signup with Facebook connect, its a high number of people who are ready to be themselves and share that on your site. So whatever you offer must be good.