Facebook Connect – single sign in done right
Posted on 05 December 2008, at 6:22 am, by Wayne Schulz
First, think about how wrong I was about Facebook.
My Mom is on it. My sisters, niece, college friends, high school friends and lots of bloggers.
Not that some (or all) of them aren’t “hot chicks” looking for guys. Facebook is just evolving into more than a high school hangout.
Just yesterday Facebook introduced something called Facebook Connect. This new feature addresses one of my biggest hassle factors with web sites — all those damn registrations. Every time you want to do something on a site you must create and authenticate yet ANOTHER user account.
There have been other initiatives to do single sign on. Open ID is one of them. The problem is what I call the “mom factor”. Open ID too confusing for people like my Mom to bother with. Facebook Connect isn’t confusing – AND it allows people to selectively share what they’ve written with their friends.
With Facebook Connect you can login with one ID and gain access to the site as well as have your activities carried back to your Facebook page.
Let’s have a look.
One of the key features of Facebook Connect is single sign-in. When you go to a Facebook Connect enabled web site where you want to make a comment , you can now login with your Facebook ID.
Instead of having to create (and authenticate) yet ANOTHER login on a separate web site (which always creeps me out and annoys me) – you login with your Facebook account.
Here I’ve logged in over at TechCrunch to leave a comment on an article that they’ve written about a cool service called Uservoice.
What I like about this new Facebook Connect is not only don’t I have to create another login, but when the site is properly setup – my Facebook ID is displayed so that other users can click to learn more about me.
If you click on my name in a comment that I’ve left on a properly configured and Facebook Connect enabled site – you’re brought to my Facebook public page. Notice that there’s nothing additional exposed — random web browsers cannot see any more information than they could at the referring page. I’m in total control of how much I display.
What’s interesting about this is not only does Facebook authenticate me — but if I give permission (you’re always in control about how much to share) – the comment I’ve written will be pulled back into Facebook with a link to the site.
If this all seems a little too open – there’s a simple cure. Don’t login with a Facebook login. You will always have the option of creating a dummy account and making anonymous comments so that nobody knows it’s you.
There’s a lot of upside potential to this. I’d love to do away with all my different web logins. But one BIG problem is going to be phishing. That’s when people try to fool you into giving up your user name and login to a site. Once someone has your Facebook login there’s going to be a lot that they could do which might be embarrassing.
Facebook also has some competition. On the same day they rolled out Facebook connect, Google introduced their version called Friend Connect (actually Google may have launched a few hours before Facebook). It remains to be seen whether Google will give Facebook a run for their money. For me I’m not as interested in letting other sites know my Google ID because I also use GMAIL quite a bit and I would not want that account compromised.
Another player in this game will be MySpace who undoubtedly will want to have their own connection ability.
What’s this all lead up to? If you have ignored Facebook as something used by kids and “hot chicks” — you should take another look. It’s not only a great way to connect with friends – but now it can save you from creating multiple login accounts to interact with sites you visit regularly.
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