There are way too many comment login systems out there. Each blogging platform (Wordpress, Typepad, Blogger) has its own login system, then there are the cross-platform commenting systems like Disqus and JS-KIT. But many of these will soon give way to Facebook Connect and Google’s Friend Connect.
I am talking about just the ID people use to login, not the commenting systems themselves. We adopted Facebook Connect as a login option for anyone who wants to leave a comment on TechCrunch, and it already accounts for more than 20 percent of our comments. FB Connect is also now available to any of the 500,000 blogs and sites that use the JS-Kit commenting widget, and Disqus is planning on implementing Facebook Connect before the end of the year.
Other blogs are adopting Google’s Friend Connect (which lets people login with various email credentials, or even Twitter). JS-Kit is also working on adding Friend Connect, as well as MySpace ID as login options.
All of this choice is great, except that already there are six different login options in The JS-Kit widget (Guest, Existing JS-Kit, New JS-Kit, Haloscan, OpenID, FB Connect). Pretty soon we’ll need the equivalent of a “Share This” button, perhaps a “Universal ID” button, that will then open up to all the options. But I think that’s too much. Engineers may feel it is egalitarian, but consumers run away when they are presented with more than 3 or 4 options.
That is why I think Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect will win in the end (Sorry, MySpace). People may have IDs for the various blogging platforms or commenting systems, but most don’t identify with them. It is a necessary inconvenience. They identify with Facebook or their email because that is where they manage their personal and professional lives.
In addition to replicating the comments on your Facebook News feed, the JS-Kit implementation also supports embedding Facebook photos and YouTube videos directly into the comments. It makes commenting much more personal when you know your friends will see it in Facebook. It also has the potential to reduce the amount of comment trolling and general incivility that has taken over many blog comments (we hope).
Update: No sooner did I post this than I learned that not only is Disqus working on a Facebook Connect plugin, but so is Six Apart (for Movable Type), Wordpress, and MediaWiki. Here is an entire Facebook Connect plugin directory. Grou.ps is also adding FB Connect.
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That long article and you dance around but never mention OpenID, shame. I’d rather have my name associated with my website rather than my facebook profile.
The sad thing about Google Friend Connect is that it doesn’t associate your name with anything.
It is mentioned twice actually. Maybe you missed it in the jumble of other login options, which is my point.
It seems more likely that you are presented with Facebook and Google (and maybe OpenID) as login options first, then a “more” link somewhere expands the options. Of course as more and more people switch to these three prepackaged login authentication systems, the number of additional options under “more” will stagnate and decrease.
By “twice”, do you mean “once”?
You also didn’t mention that it’s older than the all the rest and the only open standard.
I think the real power of Facebook Connect is how it makes it abundantly clear who it is that’s actually commenting.
Google Friend Connect enables you to log in using an OpenID, and it can associate your name with that, and with a profile.
Perhaps this is not possible.
or TechCrunch.
all my comments belong to TC and backtype.
Googl just looks for where i’m at.
CommentsLocator.com - make a statement
Arrington:
“I think the real power of Facebook Connect is how it makes it abundantly clear who it is that’s actually commenting.”
Me:
Exactly. That’s why - once again - we’re inching 1 step closer to becoming completely transparent.
A privacy nightmare. Because soon, people will start asking: “I couldn’t find any comments made by you on the Internets. WHAT ARE YOU HIDING?”
http://www.friendwalldating.boompya, hmm might work for this site to..
One problem that I see is that web sites will only use Facebook Connect or Google Friend Connect for authentication, and still rely on their own comment system.
I would love for web sites to use the comment systems provided by Facebook Connect, or Google Friend Connect. This would allow me to have access to all of the threads that I have commented on, in one place. As well, this would enable data portability for comments.
I think FB will be one of the winner.
hopefully, and here i am using facebook connect
Erick, I agree that Facebook Connect is making conversations on the web more authentic, specifically around blog comments:
http://www.insidefacebook.com/.....authentic/
I too do not want my comments linking to my Facebook profile which I hardly use. Disqus I’m okay with as it shows history of my other blog comments, which is a decent way to get to know me.
Blog comments have never been an engagement point that’s needed logging in (regardless of what blogger or vox enforced), so I’m not sure why one of these third-party commenting login systems will inherit all blog comments simply because there are so many of them.
If you were talking about services that really need a login then I very much see that one or two will become dominant, but I think for now people are doing the blog comment login because it’s shiny and new and there will be drop off amongst the folks who realize it’s not offering them anything special.
I agree with you and some of the others that have commented about using their Facebook login. I use Facebook to keep up with friends, which is quit a different form of communicating than I use for blog comments; Facebook is way too personal.
http://www.datexmedia.wordpress.com
Possibly not, just like we don’t have a dominant blog, E-mail, IM system to rule them all.
why do big companies always ruin things that werent broken. was facebook connect and google connect really necessary
Necessary, no. Engaging, yes. Just look back 15 years.
1993(ish) - Computers connect together using something called the internet.
1996 - Browser wars begin. Online forums take shape.
2001 - Google fixes search. Content is king.
2004 - LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter connect people and ideas. The focus shifts from content to connections/relationships. (Even my non-techie family is into this.)
2008 - Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect is ready to connect us even more…across websites. The idea isn’t new. Remember Microsoft Passport? I think it will work this time because of the 150m facebook users are ready for it.
In 1998, Bill Gates said, “We usually overestimate what we can do in two years and underestimate what we can to in ten. The web will be as much a way of life as the car by 2008, maybe earlier.”
Scott, nice timeline. I think Passport had more than 150 million users. Irregardless, the whole SezWho/Discus/CoComment situation is out of hand.
The Goog/FB situation is embarrassing for both parties and pisses me off to no end. They still don’t understand that getting along can be beneficial to both parties. Then again, there is no research to support this.
Discus is going to win the 3rd party comment war, mark my words. The rest will limp along.
As for FB connect, Google and OpenID- besides FB connect, nobody understands what these systems do or what the value is except for web developers. Once you get 100 million people using single signon, then maybe we will see some extensibility of these core plugins so that once someone is logged into a blog, they have a more unique experience than a non-logged in user.
Why stop at 1993? This timeline forgets the fact that a large number of people were having internet discussions via SMTP and UUCP prior to the invention of the web browser.
Not to mention that these systems had consistent UIs and were federated (UUCP/NNTP/Usenet, Internet Relay Chat, from 1988)
In the late 80s, I was reading hundreds of “forums” on USENET, from a blistering fast text based reader UI (readnews), all without having to give my credentials and personal data to any large walled-garden proprietary site.
The idea of the single sign on for the entire web being Facebook is downright repulsive and a transfer of immense responsibility and risk onto a single company. We have enough concerns and debate over who and how the DNS system is taken care of, yet people are all too willing to cheer for a future where a single company is the provider of security principals?
Much has been lost in internet architecture since the 1980s and the Web 1.0/Web 2.0 era IMHO. Hell, people probably could have built distributed social graphs along time ago on LDAP servers and LDAP referral chains if they had had the insight.
When FB expands beyond comment to other types of content, it start to become really interesting and can structurally change the web.
FB can start own content actually.
Intense debate should also figure into this debate as well.
Yeah, where is their FB Connect integration?
I am excited about the direction this is going, at the moment it’s like a game of chess between Google and Facebook Connect. After yesterday’s announcement that Google Friend Connect had integrated with Twitter, Facebook responded by seeing Twitter and raising Disqus…
Over to you Google…
Shouldn’t the cookie expire when our browser is closed?
Your session cookie will expire when browser is closed. Your Facebook login cookie will also expire unless you selected option to “remember me”.
Since I began using google checkout, they basically have every piece of my personal information. I just saw an adsense ad in my gmail telling me to reconnect with my 6th grade girlfriend, Melissa.
Scary….
@Ryan, were you serious about the Adsense ad telling you hookup with your 6th grade girlfriend? Sounds tongue in cheek. If it is really true, who paid for the ad? Did you click on it?
Not everyone wants their real name associated with the BLOG comments they make. Just another example of people throwing around their identity, pictures, and comments that can be used against them in the future.
OpenID or something very simply needs a killer app… and it’s not social media. People deserve to control their data, identity, and applications if they choose to, and nobody on the lists above is going to allow that. The future really needs to be decentralized… And let’s just say it’s hard for open source developers to provide the apps the world needs when their employers keep going bankrupt.
yes scary
lol
http://pbrush.isgreat.org/
Cool
Interesting.
This is a great day for people who want a genuine, responsible and accountable conversation thru blog comments. Not so good for those commenters who like to hide behind the cloak of anonymity, those who like to drop thoughtless, irresponsible, incendiary, libelous comments.
What ever happened to this?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008.....-build-it/
I think this is good for the blogosphere. The more community the better
Ahh…This is great. I’ve always wanted to integrate and post my comments to my Facebook profile.
This is awesome. Facebook will be dominant!
Hmmm I am not impressed. I would prefer not to comment if I have to login to comment.
I can not provide links to the website, I wish to promote, I cannot change the name with which I want the comment to appear, and although I have never done this, but I can not comment anonymous.
To be clear, having a link to your own web site through commenting is NOT going to increase the search rank of your web site because almost all web sites (including this) have “nofollow” mark to stop search engines from following to your link.
You can confirm this by checking the HTML around your name link. You will see something like:
Not sure, but I think he believes TC readers will click through after reading his “insightful” comments.
Don’t you mean,
All your are belong to !!!?
Didn’t disqus and cocomment just become a feature of friend connect/facebook connect?
Stupid html syntax filter.
I meant, all your ‘comment’ are belong to ‘them’.
if the comment can be integrated by fb or google,It will become dominant internet community society
Yippie!
facebook friend connect is cool… but lets just wait and see where its headed.
would be cool if somebody integrated google and fb.
Google Friend Connect integrated Facebook and Google at launch in May. Facebook cut it off.
Wow, this is an important things we need to pay attention to. Facebook and Google is cool~
Seems like Fb connect is doing far better here than the seesmic feature for a start…
I think there are still a segment of users and blog owners who would not want to use such tools to keep their user’s privacy and independence when giving comments.
I’m also curious as to how much data do users really want to share with Facebook and Google. Users should consciously set a limit there somewhere for it can be abuse.
Leaving a comment with FB Connect. Let’s see what happens.
**
I’m using Gravatar–I suddenly feel so old school.
20% adoption within a couple of weeks is impressive. FB got this right I think.
Data miners and private investigators drool over stuff like this..
As if access to Facebook account pages wasn’t juicy enough — now blog posts on other sites? Watch what you say out there.
Testing… How do i get my blog link on here?
ditto.
better watch what you comment at work.
I don’t want my data, be it public or not, associated and locked in to one party whether it’s Facebook or Google. I very much prefer OpenID, where I can run it on my own server and have it under my control and still have the freedom to move about with one id.
I think anyone who is worried about fallout from their comments online and therefore isn’t willing to show their real name on their comments (of course I’m not talking about things that jeopardise security of their credit cards etc.), shouldn’t be commenting.
I wholeheartedly support this (assuming private data beyond name is protected). I think ultimately it will help solve a lot of comment trolling and spamming. Of course a lot of those types of people will create fake profiles etc. but on the whole I think Facebook is pretty good at responding to complaints or automating what they call spamming behaviour, so that could be expanded to Facebook Connect, meaning those fake profiles don’t last very long (and ideally deletes their comments across the web once their profile is blocked).
One improvement I would prefer to see is the ability for my blog or chosen website to show up in my comments too (as it would were I to log in with my own credentials). This is not for SEO so much, but just for those who do want to follow your thoughts further. It could be cool if your FB Connect powered comments had little icons linking to your various online profiles as designated on YouTube (e.g. Visit Alex’s website, Visit Alex’s Twitter, Visit Alex’s YouTube page) etc.
Overall a good start, and lots of potential I hope is realised.
I’m not sayin’, just sayin’ — we did the blog version of this using the original Facebook API 9 months ago.
http://83degrees.com/post/A_new_way_to_blog
And included an option for twitter which has that built in shared amplification.
@Ted — this is important because of the increasing trend toward transparency.
I am not convinced that this inherently helps Facebook per se. Just because you collect data doesn’t mean you get anything out of it.
It definitely improves blogging and is both good and bad for WordPress (marginalizes gravatars).
I reaaaally gotta get this Facebook connect feature on my blogs and sites asap..
recommending all my friends on Facebook read the article (and the ensing conversations in the comments)
It will be great if they include FB and GFC profiles to comment .
Just a test … to see if this really connects Facebook.
people will comment differently under their real name / alias.
so instead of typing their immediate thought, some will think twice before posting a comment as to not offend any facebook friends for eg.
while you will get more thoughtful comments, you may miss those split second reaction comments.
an anonymous function (as mentioned by Rashmi above) would be handy in this case.
comment transparency vs comment privacy.
Great, how do we implement this on Blogger ?
cheers !
To add JS-Kit Comments with FaceBook support go here:
http://js-kit.com/comments/haloscan.html
Click on the Blogger or WordPress icon to install
js0kit giving me problems… the “processing” never ends !!!
This is a test. This is only a test. Well, it’s also a waste of comment space, but it’s also only a test.
You know, my readers are so lazy, they’re most of the time confused with these all options while commenting! Lol…