I attended the Facebook f8 developer conference yesterday in San Francisco and I’m still recovering from the overwhelming experience.
Thousands of developers flocked to the San Francisco Design Center to see their Social Sherpa in person and calibrate with his vision for the next year of propagating the social graph. It’s indeed a movement and his influence can not be underestimated. Comparisons to Steve Jobs were broadcast as freely as the ideas for new apps that were exchanged in almost every conversation.
I was lucky enough to get a front row seat for Zuckerberg’s state of the social network and his plans for making Facebook more pervasive in the socialization of online content and relationships.
Facebook is evolving into our dashboard for relationships and everything we do online, creating a cohesive and simplified connection between us to change and improve how we communicate.
Their mission is no small task, “Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”
One of the many announcements that was made at the company’s second annual developer conference was Facebook Connect, and it just may well be the epicenter of our social activity.
With just a bit of code, Facebook Connect enables seamless integration between Web sites, pages, communities, and networks and the Facebook identity system. For example, if you’re commenting on a blog hosted on the Moveable Type platform, you can now login with your Facebook details and not only will your comment and link to your Facebook profile appear on the blog, the activity of commenting is also linked back into your activity feed for your friends and colleagues to see. Digg, another example that was shared on stage, also supports FB Connect, making it possible for Diggers to log on using their centralized Facebook ID and for each story they digg, the activity is documented back on their profile.
Facebook Connect partners include Amiando, CBS.com, CitySearch, CNET, CollegeHumor, Disney-ABC, Evite, Flock, Hulu, Kongregate, Loopt, Plaxo, Radar, Red Bull, Seesmic, Socialthing!, StumbleUpon, The Insider, Twitter, Uber, Vimeo and Xobni.
Yes, it’s practically a direct competitor to the important OpenID system that has invested over the years in the education and development of unifying the social web and personal identities – with one login. FB Connect however, assumes that you want a profile in its proprietary social network, which may or may not be a bad thing. It’s ambitious to say the least. And, unlike OpenID, Facebook is not only the keeper of your online identity, but as I’ve written about for two years, it is also an ideal hub for your online brand. If Facebook is listening, I’m not alone in suggesting that the company should also integrate OpenID. It would be the right, and most promising, thing to do.
FB Connect transforms the social network into a portable profile that travels with you across the Web, placing you and your brand at the center of the experience.
This announcement is significant in my opinion, not just for the opportunity it represents today, but for the implementations and opportunities next month, next quarter, next year, and beyond.
The ongoing integration of support for social services in the Facebook NewsFeed is aggregating and expediting personal lifestreams and quickly becoming representative of our true online activity, painting a vivid picture of who we are and what we represent online and in the real world. With FB Connect the previously isolated silo distributes your identity and creates a direct link back to your profile, which ultimately, is a bright, powerful, and distributed beacon for your personal brand.
Facebook Connect also further socializes and unites the Web.
Now, for example, static Websites can socialize, creating a dynamic link between content and people. Businesses and communities can now directly connect corporate brands with personal brands, and more notable, the people behind them. Social networks can build and leverage expertise and reputation and carry thought leadership, preferences, causes, and relationships from community to community. Facebook Connect is a powerful catalyst for investing in and increasing Social Capital.
Remember, Facebook “public” profiles are indexed in online search engines and can be among the top results when your name is searched.
In the real world, your online reputation proceeds you.
For more on the subject, please read:
For more pictures from Facebook, please visit bub.blicio.us or the following albums on flickr:
Mark Zuckerberg Keynote
Mark Zuckerberg Press Conference
Connect with me on Twitter, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, FriendFeed, or Facebook.
Brian, thanks for the recap of the presentation and giving us a front row seat as well.
Good post. I watched the webcast. I too wish that they would entertain the notion of Open ID. Thanks for your blog. You are my mentor!
Very cool stuff, Brian. I like how you make the event feel real, even when I’m in Texas!
I can see the Steve Jobs comparisons, but doesn’t he need to get booted from FB and then reinstalled before it’s really accurate? 🙂
What are your thoughts about the video deals they struck? Too exclusive, or too many?
Thanks, Brian, for a great run down on the presentation.
I enjoy using FaceBook for soft marketing my safety and security products. They save lives and interacting with those who could benefit from them is priceless.
It’s a perfect place for networking.
This sounds of interest. After building a social network and live TV aggregation platform, we realised the opportunity to build corporate social network platform from our tried and tested technology. We now provide corporate social networking platforms and services. We have a proven track record with technology currently in use by blue-chip clients. Our brandstation solution is offered to corporate clients keen on using social networking and web 2.0 technology for either internal communication or consumer marketing. Brandstation also come in an on-demand set up with ready-made core functionality, to offer accessible communications solutions around brand and marketing business objectives. The platform enables any company to enjoy the benefits of Web 2.0 social network for internal and external communications, no matter how small or large the company is. There’s further information at http://www.brandstation.tv
Hi Brian, great post as always. Just a quick point: while unifying all my identities would make my life much easier do i really want to send colleagues/business contacts to my Facebook page? I had a discussion with Stuart Bruce here in the UK about how the online space blurs our professional and personal identities. I argued that while it does blur it somewhat i’d still rather send business contacts to my linkedIn profile rather than to the drunken images of me on my Facebook profile. I’d still like to keep the my professional life and personal life seperate because I’m young and do stupid things. That’s my only apprehension about Facebook connect and why i’ll not jump on it
It’s a real shame the FBConnect does not currently work with blogger. You have to wonder if Google or Facebook is purposely breaking the relationship. 🙁