Exactly one year ago, Facebook officially opened up Connect for all developers, and one year later, Facebook’s identity service is in the lead, rivaled only by Google and Twitter both of which have much smaller representations of the global social graph. Since launch, the company has generated a ton of buzz for the still young service and millions of users have registered for sites using Facebook Connect. While it has yet to become the standard online identity service, there are very few formidable competitors.

Facebook Scores Huge Partnerships

If there is an identity service which has been focused on generating buzz, Facebook Connect is it. That buzz has been a direct result of huge partnership deals with well known brands. One year later, Facebook has now been implemented across numerous sites including some of the following brands:

In other words, Facebook has had an extremely successful first year at attracting large names to their rapidly growing identity platform. With this week’s announcement from Yahoo! that they’d implement Facebook Connect across their properties, it appears that Facebook may have almost won the identity wars just one year in. Whether or not competing services have a chance, Facebook Connect has been boasted as a source of increased user engagement and increased registrations across most of the properties that have implemented the service.

While it has only been one year since Connect went live for all, the company has a wide lead over other competitors, at least in terms of the coverage Facebook Connect has received.

Facebook Pushes Out Connect-Enabled Widgets

While Connect was initially rolled out to developers, other sites have been able to take advantage of Facebook Connect through the use of easy-to-implement widgets. The Live Stream widget, which was used for the Obama inauguration on CNN.com at the beginning of the year, has become a widely used tool for live events. In combination with UStream, Livestream, and Justin.tv, the Live Stream widget has been used by musical artists, media companies, and others to create live interactive experiences which users can share with their friends and others.

Facebook also released the Connect-enabled comments box to provide website owners with an easy platform for instant dialogue. Thanks to these widgets, the Facebook share button, and others, Facebook has become the de-facto place for users to share information among their contacts.

Facebook Announces The Open Graph API

The Open Graph API, which was first announced in October, is about the extension of Facebook Pages to the entire web. It also will take advantage of Facebook Connect for enabling Facebook users to interact with brands and any other Facebook-powered object on the web. It’s an abstract concept and little has been disclosed about it so far, however this new service highlights the future of Facebook as it extends beyond the Facebook.com website.

Over the past year, Facebook has seen nothing short of spectacular results with one brand after the other announcing support of Facebook Connect. The upcoming Open Graph API highlights how long-term the vision of Facebook Connect really is. Just one year in, the team behind Facebook Connect has pulled of some impressive wins, and if the momentum continues, Connect could soon be the defacto identity standard of the web.