Facebook Connect News & Articles

Twitter (news, site) announced a tool called @anywhere at this year’s SXSQ event. The new feature enables users to enjoy the Twitter experience (almost) anywhere and anytime, without signing into their actual account.

Are you reminded of Facebook Connect? Yeah. Us too.
 

It's hard to absorb the rest of the web experience if all you have to offer is a walled garden. Facebook's (news, site) solution? Spread itself out onto the web like vines (or is it weeds?) over the wall through a new API.

That’s right, Zoho (news, site) and Facebook (news, site) sitting in a tree, c-o-n-n(ect)i-n-g.

With already-established support for Google Apps and Yahoo accounts, yesterday Zoho added a social layer by integrating the ability to login through Facebook Connect.
 

Why waste all that time creating an account on a website when you can login with one click of your mouse? Such is the beauty of Facebook Connect. And, if we’re lucky, soon the same will go for Twitter (news, site) as well.

Word on the street is that the microblogging champs are planning to release a set of tools that will enable third party websites to integrate Twitter features directly into their websites and services.

Not to be mistaken for Twitter’s Simply Buttons with a new look (the buttons let users on third party sites sign into Twitter), the new features will reportedly allow websites to authenticate users, pull data and publish it back to Twitter. Though it’s true that all these functionalities currently exist, they’re not wrapped in the neat little package that Facebook Connect offers.

Facebook Connect has gained massive popularity since its release in 2008, currently extending to 80,000 websites with a monthly 60 million users. And let’s not forget a recent and fairly significant move from Myspace. Once thought to be the king of social networks, the site bowed pretty low when it integrated Facebook Connect into its Fan Video service last week.

Will Twitter’s upcoming tools catch on? Towards the end of 2009 our fine feathered friend saw an unexpected leveling out in their growth rate, causing many to wonder the site would do next. Perhaps these connectivity tools are one their tricks for an explosive 2010. 

Once upon a time Myspace was the king of social networking and everyone in the land worshipped it for its profile customizability and infamous Top 8 function.

Facebook has long since usurped the throne when it comes to growth and overall number of users, but rather than be bitter it appears Myspace is adopting a familiar adage: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

What we’re talking about of course is Myspace’s recent decision to implement Facebook Connect on its Fan Video service. The service (if it’s not blocked in your region) allows a user to mashup eight music videos. Once a mashup is complete they can utilize the implementation for sharing their Myspace creations directly with Facebook friends.

The idea is that by bringing media from Myspace--now primarily known for music and video--back to Facebook, which continuously lacks in both areas, Myspace will be able to leverage their content and expose it to millions that may not have seen it otherwise. It’s a pretty anticlimactic development if you’re blocked from using Fan Video, but it speaks volumes about who’s who in social networking.

Finally, now partners rather than enemies, it will be interesting to see how Myspace's commitment to using Facebook's technology will continue to play out in 2010.

Everyone knows that there are idealists, and there are pragmatists, and the two don't mix. Right? Well, the world is rarely that black and white. Want proof? A key name in the history of open source and the open web has just gone to work for a company-devouring corporation.

Google is so quick to fire out similar solutions after a rival has, we’re beginning to wonder if this is some sort of game they just play for fun. Maybe they have a stockpile of them somewhere, labeled and ready to go? Who knows. What we do know is that less than a day after Facebook announced their linkup with Facebook Connect and Yahoo, Google busted out with a trendy integration of its own.

If you use Google’s Friend Connect site, you now have the option to log in with your Google or Twitter credentials. This means you can login to any of the nine million sites that utilize Friend Connect and, if you have a Twitter account, can tweet new memberships with friends, interesting content etc., with just a click. See here:

Facebook has made a name for itself, and has managed to touch almost every corner of the Web with the Facebook Connect feature. That level of success mixed with a company as large as Yahoo is certainly a recipe for a favorable outcome, but Google and Twitter are giant giants as well. What we're seeing is a war for the Web, no doubt, but whose pool of power will reign supreme? It's hard to say. 

Right now, the numbers tell us that the Facebook/Yahoo duo has the advantage, thanks to the social platform's massive amount of users (somewhere around 350 million). But then again, Twitter's simple mission took the Internet by storm, and is now so ubiquitous that it's odd to think there are people and companies out there that haven't signed up. 

In any event, the battle for the throne will be an interesting one to watch. 

About a year and a half ago, Facebook launched the first translated version of Facebook in Spanish. Since then, they've been busy working with community translators to translate the site into oodles of languages. From French, German, Japanese, Chinese and Italian, they worked their way up to 55 languages.

Now, they'd like you to know that thanks to its community translators, a la user-driven translation program, Facebook is available in 64 different languages. And that's not all.

Facebook is extending its translations to Facebook Connect, the platform that lets third-party websites offer Facebook login to their users and push information back to the News Feed.

LiveMesh, released earlier this year by Microsoft and still in beta, picked up a major award at the 2008 Crunchies. Amidst a flurry of start-ups, new “2.0” services and power house competition, it was a little surprising to see LiveMesh win the Best Technology Innovation Crunchie. Is the award enough to sway skeptical bloggers’ opinions about the enterprise 2.0 synchronization and collaboration system?

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There are many out there attempting to rule the face of social web and provide an answer to the time consuming-ness of being social on the internet. Names such as Google, Facebook, and FriendFeed have been at the forefront lately. Enter stage left…SocialThing, the newest contender to facilitate being social online.

Web 2.0 brought about the evolution of the social web. But there have always been challenges working socially on the web, especially with social marketing or social networking. The challenge is that it can be difficult to stay active socially, even just in your niche. Google is trying to change that.