Facebook Connect v Friend Connect

On Friday, social networking site, Facebook announced the debut of Facebook Connect, a new technology for members to connect their profile data across the web

On Friday, social networking site, Facebook announced the debut of Facebook Connect, a new technology for members to connect their profile data and authentication credentials to external websites. Whilst not a first, the move made the website the largest major webco to deliver on the promise of data portability.

Through Facebook Connect, Facebook members will be able to use their Facebook identities across the web. Profiles, pics groups and more could appear on other websites and social networks. The move has been championed by Dave Moran, senior platform manager for the website. Speaking of the new service on his blog, Moran commented:

“We believe the next evolution of data portability is about much more than data. It’s about giving users the ability to take their identity and friends with them around the Web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings.”

Now less than a week later, Google has unveiled its plans for Friend Connect – another way to add social features to websites. David Grazier director of engineering at Google believes Friend Connect will allow users to “interact with any of their friends anywhere they go on Web, and with any app.”

Meanwhile Myspace recently announcing Data Availability (a way for users to share data profiles across the web) inaugural partners in the process were Yahoo, Photobucket, eBay and Twitter.