It has been a long time coming, and now that Facebook has taken the clear gold medal among social networks, it is high time that the rest of the Internet bows down and recognizes this fact. All hail Facebook, our time sapping and all-friend encompassing overlord. It is with open arms that we welcome thee, as we have no other choice. Not that we would want to. Slowly but surely, there are ways that Facebook is becoming a part of everything else on the social web. And it is all thanks to Facebook Connect. Here are some of the ways I believe that Facebook Connect will be the one ring to bind us all.
In a nutshell, Facebook Connect is a way to utilize your already established Facebook account to authenticate and personalize your activity on third party sites. Makes sense, right? Good, let's see how it works.
Commenting Made Easy
Scroll down to the bottom of this post for a second, then scroll back up. Ok, so you see that we use Disqus, right? Disqus is a great example of a service that uses Facebook Connect to its advantage. No need to sign up to another site. No need to create another password and username. (Seriously, how many freaking usernames and passwordses do we need?) Disqus uses the information you’ve already given Facebook to log you in, making it easy to leave comments on our blog. Also other blogs, too, if you happen to read those. For those blogs not using Disqus, Wordpress has a Facebook Connect plug in that seems to do essentially the same thing: make it easier to voice your opinion.
Also, sites like Digg and StumbleUpon are doing you, and themselves, a big favor by allowing you to sign in with your Facebook ID and immediately share your finds in your feed. On top of commenting, liking and sharing on Digg itself, you can also use the functionality of Facebook Connect to share things with your Facebook friends who aren’t familiar with Digg.