Facebook Connect and Googles Response
Facebook is continuing to see tremendous growth, and the next few blog posts will explore some of the reasons why. Originally this was intended to be a single follow-up to a previous post, however it makes more sense to break it down into bite-sized pieces.
Facebook Connect
Facebook Connect is a tool which allows website owners to seamlessly integrate Facebook into their websites. The basic idea is that users can carry their identity, connections and content to other websites, such as nytimes.com, cnn.com and digg.com. CNN’s coverage of the presidential inauguration showcased the power of FB Connect. Viewers on CNN.com could log into FB and participate in a conversation around live content with their friends and others on FB while remaining on CNN. This is a powerful notion – bringing your friends with you to wherever valuable content resides. This kind of integration gives value to publishers, allowing them to tap into the FB community and brings new users to their site, and Facebook extends its reach into content other than that created by its users.
The importance of Facebook Connect cannot be understated. Comment, profile and community integration across multiple properties is the next major step in social networking, and Facebook is the undisputed leader in community. I discussed the idea of profile portability in a previous post. Truly portable profiles are likely never going to be available to users, and if they’re available, they’ll likely be second class citizens. Each profile will continue to be tied to one home, be it Facebook, MySpace, .Mac, or Google, as opposed to being tied to an encrypted smart card, cell phone or like device.
I say “each profile” because the idea of a unified profile will remain a distant vision. We’ll all continue to have several identities on different networks, however we’ll have two or three instead of the dozens we have today. There is too much value in “owning” your profile for any of the power players to let the data go and allow full unification of online identities. Despite Google’s mantra to avoid data lock-in (the inability for users to take their data and go elsewhere), they desperately want you to use them as your home. Access to your demographic data greatly increases the value of their targeted advertising, a payday they missed out on when Microsoft landed their deal with Facebook last year. It should also be noted that Yahoo has tried to get into the “social home” game many times, yet has completely blown it despite their enormous numbers of mail users. Arguably, social networks begin with the Inbox, which Yahoo owned for many, many years. Their failed attempts add up to the predicament they’re in today, but I digress.
Just today Google released a protocol combining OpenID and OAuth, two open source approaches to parts of the unified profile problem, bringing the two partial solutions together to form a united and free competitor to the marketplace. This approach to breaking through Facebook’s walled garden may create a few cracks, however, Google will need to push this standard to its partners, and potentially incentivize them to implement it, either by paying a flat rate, the same way it subsidises FireFox installations on Windows, or by subsidies in the form or advertising credits.
Facebook has set the bar for Google and the others, and has already opened up a demanding lead. Google’s not standing still, neither are Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo. I’m looking forward to seeing this play out, especially with regards to smaller publishers – they may be forced to pick sides, and the winner may be determined by how much money the players are willing to spend chasing users.
January 29th, 2009
What bothers me is not being able to DESTROY my content when I leave a network. I create it, I upload my data, it’s mine, not theirs. I wonder how long until there is a lawsuit because of it.
January 29th, 2009
Good point. I also wonder how all of this integration affects the Terms of Services of the sites involved. What happens when there’s a breach on one of the sites using FB connect, and their user database is compromised? How will that be handled? Who’s liable?
January 29th, 2009
Definitely will be interesting. You could sell the user database for thousands, if not millions, of dollars. I see people do it all the time with adult dating sites.