Posted 05/25/09 at 03:58:58 PM by Paul Lilly

Last month, David Murphy wrote that "open-source projects like OpenID are paving the way for a new generation of connectivity, one where differing Web entities come to you for information and display it in a format and location of your choosing." Taking a giant step in that direction, Facebook has officially become an OpenID relying party.

What that means is that Facebook users can now link their Facebook account to a Gmail address, OpenID URL, or any OpenID provider that supports automatic login. It's a move that has proved popular so far, according to Facebook.

"In tests we've run, we've noticed that first-time users who register on the site with OpenID are more likely to become active Facebook users," Facebook says. "They get up and running after registering even faster than before, find their friends easily, and quickly engage on the site."

The social networking site says it plans to integrate more OpenID providers as time goes one, one of which is expected to be Microsoft.

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Posted 04/30/09 at 08:00:00 PM by David Murphy

A large part of the Web as we know it today is built around independent communities. Think about it. You have a login for your Twitter account, a login for your Facebook account, a login for your [insert favorite Web site here] account. And while each of these independent entities can play with each other via plugins, coding trickery, or outright hacks... you're still stuck in three separate sandboxes at the end of the day. Does Twitter know what I like on my Facebook page? Can Amazon take a gander at my current interests and suggest related purchases? Do any of these sites know who my friends really are--not just the people I tweet, but the people I email on a regular basis?

While that's the current state of social affairs on the Web, it's not necessarily the future. Open-source projects like OpenID are paving the way for a new generation of connectivity, one where differing Web entities come to you for information and display it in a format and location of your choosing. Instead of jacking your life into the Web on a variety of fronts, you will have one point of interaction, one location to present your information. Your interaction with your typical litany of sites will become highly accurate and customized for your lifestyle. And best of all, you won't have to login to 85 different places to make it work.

Learn how OpenID has played a role in this transformation after the jump!

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Posted 12/05/08 at 02:05:19 PM by Andy Salisbury

This past Thursday both Facebook and Google announced their own separate “Connect” features, designed to extend social networking capabilities further across the Internet. The connect programs, named Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect respectively allow users of the two sites to port content they have entered (such as photos, contacts, notes, comments and status updates) to other partner pages.

Google’s service is already available to any site publisher that chooses to implement it. The features become available with a simple copy and paste of some code, so advanced coding knowledge isn’t required. Once it’s been added to a site, users can log into the service using their Google, Yahoo, AOL or OpenID accounts.

Facebook is looking to their users for help in convincing web sites that their service is worthwhile. “Obviously our launch partners don't cover all the websites you use on a daily basis, so if you want to see this list grow, get in touch with your favorite websites, developers, and services, and tell them you want to connect. With your help, we can all share more information across the web,” wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

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