Websites Caught in Tug-o-War as Facebook and Google Launch “Connects”

December 4th, 2008

By Jesse Stay

This week has been quite the week for both Facebook and Google, as both have released their “Connect” products more broadly to developers and webmasters over the last couple of days. Facebook’s Facebook Connect and Google’s Friend Connect products are engaged in a game of virtual Tug-o-War with developers and webmasters as they race to get more sites to integrate their Connect products. Developers and website owners must choose which to go with, though the two are quite different.

Google Friend Connect – Social Context Through Gadgets

Google’s Friend Connect allows webmasters to authenticate their users from multiple social networks at once. However, while Facebook Connect links users to their Facebook profile and friends, profiles and friends are still very lightly developed in Friend Connect. Most of the early deployments (example here) are basically community lists and comment walls.

Given that Friend Connect is based on OpenSocial, developers should theoretically be able to link users of their websites to their profiles and friends on multiple social networks. However, currently, users are only able to link to their profile to Plaxo, Orkut, or Google itself. There is still no support for larger OpenSocial participants like MySpace and Yahoo.

However, website owners don’t have to do much to get set up with a Friend Connect gadget on their site. In theory, once set up, any existing OpenSocial gadget could be easily imported into the Friend Connect-enabled website. Almost no coding is needed to be set up with Google Friend Connect.

Facebook Connect – Social Context Through Integration

Facebook Connect, on the other hand, is more deeply integrated with the Facebook social graph and viral channels. (We’ve covered Facebook Connect extensively in previous coverage here, here, here, and here.)

With Facebook Connect integration, websites are able to easily publish to Facebook feeds and send Facebook invitations. Because Facebook controls the whole interaction, the user experience is in general much more smooth.

However, in order to integrate Facebook Connect, website owners must know a little bit of software development. Facebook Connect is more than just a series of widgets; webmasters can optimize every aspect of their site for integration with the Facebook Platform if they wish. Facebook is working on a Wordpress plugin to make it easier for bloggers to integrate Facebook Connect, and other plugins should be coming soon.

Conclusion

Who will win this race to wire up the social web is hard to tell. Ideally, we’d love to see Facebook and Google play nice and interoperate with one another, but at this point that looks unlikely. We’ve only gotten started – it will be interesting to see how it all evolves.

Who do you think will win this race? Share your own thoughts below!

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9 Responses to “Websites Caught in Tug-o-War as Facebook and Google Launch “Connects””

William Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 4:25 am
At adelph.us we believe in members freedom to control their accounts, and their content. We also believe that any revenue model should always put the members in the equation first. We believe in the Open Source community and ideals. We know we are not the smartest guys in the room and trust the our community of members and developers.

Break the chains of the old web 2.0 model. Do not give your content or your software development work to closed source old world companies they only seek to profit from you
Injury Lawyer Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 8:42 am
I was wondering if the shotgun approach of using every SBS is best, or just use Google Connects for example. Any thoughts?

P.S. My primary use would be to promote my law firm and stay in touch with clients.
Jesse Pickard Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Hey Justin,

I think you’ll like a deck that I just put out with Shiv Singh. It’s all about imagining the potential of Facebook, specifically what happens when sites have the power of social context. Check it out and let me know what you think.

http://www.slideshare.net/shivsingh/portable-social-graphs-imagining-their-potential-presentation?type=powerpoint
Jesse Pickard Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Whoops. There are a few typos in there. It should read like this: “It’s all about imagining the potential of Facebook Connect, specifically about what happens when sites have the power of social context”
Jesse Stay Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Injury Lawyer, that would depend on how you want to approach it. The easiest approach would be Google Friend Connect, but if you want to integrate deeply into the social experience, Facebook Connect may be the solution for you.
Simon Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 3:51 am
It is going to be really interesting to see who wins this.

I for one think Google has the right idea (being more open source), but Facebook IS social…

I hope Google wins, because Facebook is just being prats by “closing” up their walls.
Google Launched a Social Network (you just didn’t realize it) | Marketing.fm Says:
December 8th, 2008 at 7:56 am
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Google Launched a Social Network (you just didn’t realize it) » Eninvent Says:
January 24th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
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Michael Ehline Says:
May 27th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
@Jesse Stay: Well I use Friend connect, and it doesnt seem to get me any link juice or anything for all my efforts. Digg for example gives link juice back.

Traffic is cool, but I want more than that, I want to be a trusted site. And juice helps.