Facebook Connect Goes Live
Facebook Connect is important to Facebook, because its a way for the site to better understand how its users behave around the Web, even as Facebook plays a more central role.
Someday, goes the speculation, Facebook might even create an ad network on Facebook Connect's backbone.
Google's rival service, Friend Connect, launched earlier. Friend Connect does the same thing as Facebook Connect, but for users of social networks Orkut and Plaxo.
Facebook says that during testing, sites implementing Facebook Connect have about 50 percent more engagement when compared to non-Facebook Connect users of a Website."
Here's a list of sites that have agreed to use Facebook Connect. It reads a bit like coalition of the willing:
Citysearch, CNET and TheInsider.com by CBS Interactive, CNN.com/Forum, ConnectedWeddings, Gawker, Global Grind, Govit, Howcast, IndieGoGo, Inside Facebook, Joost, MoveOn, MyBarackObama, Newsbrane, Red Bull, SGN iFun, SFGate, TechCrunch, TripAdvisor, Yammer, Vimeo, vLane, and Xobni; alumni associations at Oklahoma State University, University of Toronto, Oregon State, and Ithaca College; as well as services and plug-ins from Force.com, iModules, Pluck SiteLife, and Six Apart.
See Also:
Facebook Connect's First Test Works Fine, But The Real Test Is Still To Come
So interesting that a short time ago Microsoft (A closed source company) wanted to push forward a standard (Passport) that would have give users the ability to have one log in that worked for many sites. At the time many in the tech and development community saw this as just another Microsoft Land Grab for our Identity and our Content. Many people saw Passport as a Microsoft effort to finally gain control of the internet by becoming the standard for digital identity.
Today we have no less than 3 closed source companies in a race to become the "Standard" for holding or Identity and therefore having access to the content that we read and the content that we creates.
All of this at a time when there are many Open Source standards that could be used (Openid is just one that comes to mind) that if properly deployed would do the right thing by putting the user/member in charge of their log in as well as their relationships across many sites.
Have we forgotten the lesson of the not so distance past ?
Why do we not see a problem with the big 3 trying to become the proprietary standard in this very important area ?
Why do developers especially Open Source developers continue to build and extend applications for closed source companies that under mind open source standards and ideals ?
Why do users continue to view giving control of their identity and content to these companies as a win, when in fact the win is clearly on the side of the company that you have allowed to take control of your identity and to generate value and revenue from your content. In return for our compliance we do not even have a right to take our identity and our content where we want.
At adelph.us we believe in members freedom to control their accounts, and their content. We also believe that any revenue model should always put the members in the equation first. We believe in the Open Source community and ideals. We know we are not the smartest guys in the room and trust the our community of members and developers.
Break the chains of the old web 2.0 model. Do not give your content or your software development work to closed source old world companies they only seek to profit from you