Facebook Connect FTW

Facebook Connect is a big deal, I believe, for the Internet as a whole.  I could blab on for hours about the neat positive points and the scary negative points of the new platform, but instead I'll just cut to the chase and get the brief, important points out of the way.

What It Is:

Facebook at one time (early 2007) had planned to introduce an advertising platform called "Beacon," which would allow advertisers to access your profile information and attempt to directly suggest products, services, etc. to your profile / News Feed in Facebook.  This was met with harsh criticism from many privacy advocates, not to mention the Facebook user base at large.  The project was largely abandoned just weeks from going live.

Now in late 2008, Facebook Connect comes along, and is based on a similar concept but with an important twist: user opt-in.  Connect is a similiar concept to Beacon in that advertisers will be able to post in your News Feed, but in a very intuitive way.

Facebook Connect allows third party websites to use your Facebook login information for their site.  In other words, imagine finding an awesome website that you love, but it requires you to sign up for the site - to create a username and password.  While many people already have dozens of login credientials at different websites, Facebook Connect allows this website to use your Facebook information as your login - eliminating the need to sign up for yet another username and password.

So any website that uses Facebook Connect allows you to use your Facebook credientials locally.  In return, that website gets access to your profile information and - this is the kicker - gets to post stories in your News Feed about your activity at that site.  This will allow your friends to see actions you take at other websites, which is the basis for hidden advertising, so to speak: word of mouth.  Your friend buys a shirt from site X after they used their Facebook account to log in; a News Feed item appears on your Facebook homepage showing your friend and a picture of the shirt.  You like the shirt too, so you go buy one from the site.  Advertising built right on top of the user - brilliant, I say.

My Initial Reaction:

So far I've only used Facebook Connect on two websites: Gizmodo and Kotaku.  Instead of signing up for a username to being a registered commenter on those sites, I can use my Facebook profile as my registration, and my name, picture, and profile information are automatically presented on those sites, with links back to my original Facebook profile.

I think Connect is a great idea, very akin to OpenID - the concept of having one username / password / profile that is shared among any site you may visit.  I can certainly see privacy issues; my picture, full name, and any information in my Facebook profile is now available for the world to see on any external site that I choose.  Still, I like the idea of my online identity being available on multiple websites, and I think the New Feed linking/posting is a great way to see and track habits of friends (kind of stalkerish, you say? No, just classic Facebook).

Go here to get a growing list of websites that use Facebook Connect to let you login.  Each website applies it's own privacy policy to your use of their site, even with your Facebook credentials, so read the fine print before diving in to see where your information is going.

It'll be interesting to see how this grows and how big of a privacy concern it will grow to be.  I'll certainly be watching, but not from the sidelines, but as an avid user of Facebook Connect.

B3 out.