First Encounter with Facebook Connect
In an attempt to get a head start on the new year health drive I spent a few mornings over the Christmas break having rings ran round me by my Royal Marine brother. Having left my trusty GPS watch up in Leeds I reverted to one of my favourite sites www.mapmyrun.com to confirm my general lack of fitness and track my return to athletic prowess. The site uses Google Maps to allow you to plot your route, ensuring you can see how far you are going and where the mile markers are. It’s a useful tool for a wide variety of sports and this hasn’t been lost on the site owners who have launched a variety of re-skinned spin offs like MapMyRide and MapMyHike.
On top of this simple but highly effective tool the site is building a social network which provides users with a profile and training log in order to share routes, add friends and keep a track of their fitness. This is where Facebook connect comes in; I can now log in to the site using my Facebook credentials and find out if any of my Facebook friends are using the site. My activities on the site are then posted back to my Facebook profile (after adding the site's Facebook App) and the activities of any of my friends who use MapMyRun will appear in my newsfeed.
So far so good, but this seems to be where the Facebook integration ends and you’re left with a lot of duplication of features such as groups, events and discussion forums. With so much going on in the MapMyRun site this probably makes sense but I think there are more opportunities for shared functionality. It would be great to be able to create a Facebook group which could then share some of the functionality of Map My Run or perhaps an event to which I can invite my friends, share the route and upload individual results afterwards.
Other sites using the system include Digg.com and I could see the benefits of closer integration with other well established social networks like Last.fm and Flickr, but like previous attempts at global log in systems, without mass take up by site owners it’s unlikely to take off with the general public. Careful controls over privacy seem to be in place to avoid the poor reaction received at the launch of Facebook’s Beacon Advertising system. Facebook describe the five main features of Connect as;
Trusted Authentication: With Facebook Connect, Facebook users can quickly and easily authenticate into an external website using their already established Facebook account.
Real Identity: Facebook users use their real names and real identities to represent their actions in the Facebook experience. With Facebook Connect, users will have the same opportunity to leverage their real identity on an external website.
Friend Linking: Through trusted friend connections on Facebook, users share information because they know what information is being shared and with whom. Through Facebook Connect, users will be able to access their friends on any website, enabling trusted social context anywhere on the Web.
Dynamic Privacy: Giving users control over their privacy is paramount on Facebook. With Facebook Connect, users can be assured that the same privacy settings they have set up on Facebook will follow them to whatever website they choose. With Facebook Connect and all new SML markup technology, dynamic privacy is easy to implement.
Social Distribution: When users log into a partner site with Facebook Connect, they can share their actions on that site with their friends back on Facebook, enabling them to share more information with their friends than ever before. For partners, this means increased distribution for their content throughout Facebook, enabling re-engagement and discovery of new content.
Like any other social network, the site will no doubt become more compelling as I make more connections, who’s activity’s can then be shared via my Facebook homepage. The site continues to innovate with the recent launch of an iPhone app which provides similar functionality to my Garmin GPS or a Nike+ system whilst also allowing imports from both of these systems. So, whilst Facebook connect is not yet the killer feature that it might be in the future, it’s use by MapMyRun is a great example of an innovative niche social network promoting itself to the masses. For brands which have useful online tools or interesting content that they want users to contribute to and share, Facebook connect could be a useful way of distributing their message and both encouraging and streamlining the registration process.
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