Digital Crosstalk

Welcome to the social web

Posted by Brian | Filed under blogging

Over the past few years social networks have grown in popularity at a rapid pace. Most of us hold an account with Facebook or MySpace, and more and more of us hold accounts with Web 2.0 sites such as Digg, Twitter, Hulu or CBS. Until now these services have always been separate, with different profiles for each service, each requiring a different username and login.

Admittedly, it has been a little annoying having to sign up for all of these services, and it seemed like each service only gave a little insight into the profile holder. For example a Digg profile might give an idea of what news stories he liked, while a Hulu account might tell you a little about the TV programmes he liked and, of course, Facebook gave the best overall profile, but had very static information.

Thanks to Facebook Connect it looks like all of this might be about to change. Facebook users will be able to log on to partner sites such as Digg and Hulu using their Facebook account and share with ease the videos and articles they are enjoying, as well as being able to discuss it live with Facebook friends on the same site.

One of the most interesting uses of Facebook connect has been with Obama’s campaign site. The application allowed visitors to mybarackobama.com to connect with other Facebook friends who were also members of the site, as well as being able to share information from the site with other Facebook friends.

Of course this isn’t the first time Facebook has tried such a move. It’s impossible to forget Beacon, the classic Facebook fail which shared user purchases from partner e-commerce sites with friends, naturally causing some embarrassment. One of the main horror stories to come from the Beacon disaster was that of Sean Lane whose surprise Christmas gift of a diamond ring was leaked to his all his Facebook friends, including the recipient.

Don’t think Facebook is the only one planning to do this. MySpace, Yahoo and Google have all announced the launch of their software, all hoping to own the generic user login by the end of the year. Why? Well, whichever of the main social networks controls user logins will be privileged to an enormous amount of user data, with the promise of extremely targeted advertising on their own networks in the future.

The move for the generic login continues, and no doubt it will be met with aversion for privacy groups all keen not to see a repeat of the previous disaster. Only time will tell whether it is successful or not, but this should be more than evident within just a few weeks.

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Tags: digital