Facebook Connect, Finally Hits The Big Wide Web
Facebook Connect after many months of hacking has finally been released! So what is this Facebook Connect and what does it mean for the average internet user?
Facebook Connect is Facebook’s (the Social Networking Giant) way of stretching their reach across the web and ingrain themselves into a huge numbers of websites buy allowing Facebook account holders to login and interact with 3rd party websites using their Facebook ID.
One of the best examples of this is CBS’s celebrity gossip site TheInsider; anyone can log in using their Facebook ID, and then interact with the site leaving comments to any articles or posts, chat with other users and even invite friends. You can then also choose to have any comments, article votes, or poll responses show up in your Facebook Profile.
Currently CBS is testing Facebook Connect only on TheInsider, but if they get a good response from the widget then they plans to roll it out across other CBS.com and Cnet sites.
What does it mean for the average internet browser?
Well if you don’t have a Facebook account then it won’t mean much as you won’t be able to get involved! However as long as you have an account or ID then it will mean you can instantly begin to interact with the site without having to set up a separate account and all your activity can be easily posted to you Facebook profile, updating all you friends what you have been up to!
For peace of mind and security whatever you have set your privacy settings on Facebook to, will automatically be applied to every Facebook Connect site where you are also logged in.
It is expected that many more sites will be rolling out the new widget over the next few months, wich as long as the take up is sufficant then it could really add a whole new dimension to Social Neworking!
