The blogosphere is buzzing with discussions about the release of both Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect frameworks.
But in my initial reading of both, I don’t think there was ever a contest: Facebook Connect is a clear winner for me, and has made me rethink of how important this feature is for the survival of Mark Zuckerbeg‘s social website.
What these two frameworks offer is a way to extend your own website to users who live in other social networks, but the way that Google and Facebook implement is very different.
Google Friend Connect offers preconfigured widgets that do different things, but always maintaining the user separate from your website. These include a Member Gadget (that allows you to “join” a site and see other people who also have), a Wall Gadget (that allows users to post comments to a site) and a Ratings Gadget to rate either the site or the page you’re looking at.
But these user data always resides within the rectangular borders of the gadget space. Your site never knows what’s happening or gets any way to modify this information. Google might change this down the road, but right now, we have a very Google-controlled user experience.
On the other hand, Facebook Connect does allow you to create a deep integration with your site, as Facebook mentions on their integration document:
If you are not using Facebook Connect as your primary login, you can still use it to augment existing accounts on your site.
I love this word “augment” because it sums up what Facebook is doing. It’s giving your small little site the chance to be exposed to a network where real identity and real connections is the main theme. In Google’s case, the user’s identity is not as valuable.
But the clear winning advantage for me is the following: Facebook does social well and does it all the time. Google is a huge monster with lots of verticals to take care of.
CNet’s Rafe Needleman has a very interesting article that reveals how succesful Facebook Connect has been with the trial partners.
Facebook Senior Platform Manager Dave Morin told me that many beta test sites that have been using Facebook Connect (there are several dozen so far) have been seeing users log in with their Facebook IDs instead of their pre-existing site IDs at about a 2:1 ratio. Facebook Connect gives site managers the option to tie their local registration credentials to Facebook IDs, so users can log in either way.
Personally, I had the chance to work with the Facebook team implementing their beacon system for ExpoTV, and I have to say, even though the program itself wasn’t as succesful, the technical implementation was very well executed.
This time around Facebook got it right.
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