Facebook Connect Set To Expand; Includes Discovery, Digg, Hulu and Others
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
Facebook, in an increasing attempt to prove its utility beyond its own site (and hence build on its advertising potential in the long run), is expanding its Facebook Connect service on some major media and services sites, including *Discovery*.com, SFChronicle, Digg, Citysearch, CBS.com, Hulu and others. The Connect service allows a federated identity system of sorts, competing with other services/efforts such as OpenSocial (backed by *Google* and MySpace) and OpenID, and also allows Facebook services to go outside its own site onto other services. It allows Facebook users to sign in on these third-party sites, connect with their friends who also use the sites, and then share their info and action on the social networking service.
Facebook, which has 120 million members worldwide, will not be monetizing Connect in any direct way yet, reports NYT, mindful of the Beacon disaster last year, but down the line could help serve more personalized ads on partner sites. Connect on other sites will drive traffic back to Facebook, thus increasing possibilities. For now, the service on third party sites is available by approval only, but in the next few weeks it plans to allow sites to register themselves for Connect, without having to seek approval.
Interesting to watch out for the next phase of the battle in social networking sites, and who wins out in making their identity systems more pervasive
By Rafat Ali