2 Comments »Yesterday Facebook announced the launch of Facebook Connect and with it the opportunity for sites around the web to easily integrate into the largest “social graph†on the web. The pre-f8 hype along with MySpace’s Data Availability initiative and Google’s Friend Connect program ended up muting much of the buzz that was intended for Facebook Connect. Whether or not it was buzzed about, Facebook Connect could have a substantial impact on the future of the web as Om Malik points out.
I agree with Om and I think that Facebook Connect could truly be game changing. As many industry thought leaders were saying last night at f8, Facebook Connect is the alternative to OpenID.
I can see why at a high-level you might think Facebook Connect could be an alternative to OpenID, but fundamentally from a technology perspective Connect is centralized and controlled by Facebook. Just as no one would let Microsoft control the identity protocols on the internet with Passport, Facebook won’t be able to do it with Connect.
I can see why at a high-level you might think Facebook Connect could be an alternative to OpenID, but fundamentally from a technology perspective Connect is centralized and controlled by Facebook. Just as no one would let Microsoft control the identity protocols on the internet with Passport, Facebook won’t be able to do it with Connect.