First Encounter with Facebook Connect
- Facebook Connect Example
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.
