Brands Bring Confidence to Facebook Connect
In early May, Facebook announced a new platform for integrating external sites with the social network. As opposed to the existing developer platform, which allowed content and functionality to be brought into Facebook, this new service would allow the Facebook social graph to travel anywhere across the web. This platform was entitled Facebook Connect.
Facebook Connect gives any site the opportunity to allow Facebook users to log in with their Facebook account, connect with existing friends, and send updates of their activities back to Facebook. You could think of it as OpenID meets a significantly better-managed Beacon.
The platform was initially only open to 24 hand-picked launch partners. These were a select group of marquis brands (RedBull, Disney), media companies (CBS, ABC, CNET) and popular Web 2.0 services (Digg, Evite). But after months of exclusive development rights, only a handful of these ever actually implemented Connect. TechCrunch was left wondering in late October: where are all the partners?
While I can understand why Facebook may have been drawn to selecting a handful of high profile partners to kick off, it’s also easy to see why this approach produced lukewarm results. Sure, it’s easy to criticize with 20/20 hindsight, but there is an important lesson Facebook should take from the evolution of its developer platform.
The model of developer platform was proven not by companies with huge production budgets, but by independent third party developers who had no production budgets whatsoever, and zero media dollars to bolster early adoption. Their apps had to be good, or they would fail. The major force for innovation in the Facebook developer platform has always come from the little guys (and girls).
Yet while it is independent developers who may drive the innovation of Facebook Connect, there is still a crucial role for brands in ultimately validating the platform. With phishing sites like “Faceubook” already popping up, it will take consumer trust in brands to permit Facebook Connect’s long term success.
Brands matter more to Facebook Connect because users are on unfamiliar ground when they interact with this platform. Installing third party apps within Facebook is something most users are comfortable with — according to Facebook itself, 95% of users have installed at least one application. For the majority of users to feel comfortable providing their Facebook login information to a third party site, they’re going to have to trust the brand that serves as the gatekeeper.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke recently about the importance of branding in maintaining safety and trust online:
Brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.
Many of us working in the social networking space have been eagerly awaiting the day when Facebook Connect would be opened up to the public. It was recently announced that that day will be November 30, and Facebook is now accepting applicants to participate. My prediction is that the adoption of Facebook Connect will be dependent on a balance between innovation by small, scrappy third parties and consumer confidence in slower moving big brands. It will be interesting to see if Facebook recognizes the importance of this balance as well.
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