Somedays, it seems like Facebook Connect is slowly taking over the web. It’s becoming so ubiquitous that it’s more surprising now to find a site that doesn’t allow you to log-in with your Facebook credentials. Seeing this, Google has been taking steps to make its own similar platform, Friend Connect, more social. And today they’ve quietly launched a pretty big feature: Twitter integration.
Starting immediately, if a site has Friend Connect installed, a user can log-in using either their Google account or their Twitter account. And if they’ve logged in with their Twitter credentials, their username and profile picture are passed through OAuth back to Friend Connect. More importantly, it means that you can easily tweet with the click of a button (to invite friends to check out the site). And any comment they leave on that site can be automatically tweeted out.
The timing of this move is fairly interesting seeing as Yahoo just announced massive Facebook Connect integration. It’s also worth noting the Google rival Microsoft owns a small portion of Facebook through an investment made in 2007.
So will Twitter integration help Friend Connect spread the way Facebook Connect is? Probably not since Twitter has nowhere near the 350 million users that Facebook does, but this is a nice addition that certainly can’t hurt. We’ve been saying for months that Twitter should have its own “Connect” platform, which is sort of does in some ways, but this takes it a lot closer.
Why not just include Facebook Connect as well? Make it a single login entity. You know, what OpenID was supposed to be.
Facebook doesn’t appear keen to share its social graph data with Google yet. See http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/15/he-said-she-said-in-google-v-facebook/
As a Facebook user I’d prefer to own my social graph data (just like my photos on Facebook) myself, and be able to port it wherever I want.
I’ll agree. If Google really wants to take a dominant share of the “Connect” pie, they should integrate FB Connect as well.. the reasons to keep using the original (single-login) FB Connect will then disappear.
i don’t think google will go for it.
and microsoft wont allow that as they are one of the investors.
friendconnect is gay, and so is twitter.
Interesting how TechCrunch doesn’t use Friend Connect on here but does use Facebook Connect.
I’ve never understood the draw for Facebook connect over friend connect. Google offers a log in through a multitude of services, facebook only for one…
Distribution.
I like it.
Interesting that Google needs Twitter. This will not be the last time that Twitter helps Google with a leg up and over the wall.
Wait until RealTime search hits the Web, then we’ll know that Twitter matters (to average folk) and that Google desperately needs Twitter.
It’ll be interesting to see if Twitter users actually use the Google FriendConnect Widget on my blog, I actually quite prefer the Twitter Widget from TwitterCounter.com to Twitter’s own widget.
Of course ever since Facebook went over the wall spreading the social sauce with Fan Boxes (upcoming Yahoo! property bridges) Google has been able to see the incredible growth Facebook has seen.
It remains to be seen if Google ever gets social in the broader context.
Very nice, would love them to add Twitter login to comments on Blogger now.
This can only weaken Twttr. G features are much more powerful making G the better home base.
When is Google going to realize that dumping people onto a page isn’t very helpful? If I was going to tweet about my comment, I’d want my friends to be able to START with my comment.. not the entire page!!
I wonder if FB and Google will ever partner to combine their logins…then I think we would truly have a unified web login system. I do however find it interesting that for commenting you can…F connect aswell as leave you twitter username…
Do you know there is a client which use GFC to connect with multiple twitter accounts, it is Twitgether, http://twittergadget.appspot.com/gfc/.
So Techcrunch, let me get this straight:
yahoo allows facebook connect to sign-in: dead company – gives up on innovation
google allows twitter to sign in: brilliant
I guess when your credibility is at 0, you don’t have much to lose.
Interesting to see a “positive” post for Google integrating with Twitter .. while Yahoo! integrating with Facebook is a “give up”.
MG, don’t you think Micheal was too biased in his post?
@Anurag
The thing is *everything* Yahoo starts is a big #failure. Search -> terrible, Messenger (without a “passport like MSN, users will never accept it), Mail (who likes three minutes loading-time), Flickr (they even urge Pro users to backlink their images!!).
Result: Not ONE single product that is good at all.
I don’t say Google has good products. Search is getting more and more bad, Mail is getting slower and slower, and all the other services are made for 5-year old kids. BUT… most of them work (at least)…
Ha ha.. You are right on that one.
We have our inclination to various entities. The degree of inclination is heavily influenced by ideologies, personal contacts and yeah those free gadgets and party calls that come in the name of testing and product launch.
I have my own and you have your own inclination. So does Michael.
Also interesting that Yahoo is the only company in your comment that TC.com doesn’t link to related posts.
Wait now none of them are linked… Is TC testing out a new feature?
The problem I see with using Twitter to integrate is that if you manage multiple twitter accounts (1 personal, several business accounts) there is the risk of associating an account and not being able to change that choice on a per-connect basis.
“google buys twitter for $x”… any day now.
try out the new google search!
http://www.zjtechlive.com/try-the-new-google-search/
I think eventually they’ll all come together and be forced to open access to each other. Its all about user demand and people want to be able to glide from one page to another easily. Social Network Wadja.com has already opened login access to Twitter and I think has plans to open login further to Google AND Facebook users.
When I read the headline, I assumed Google tweeted to the pilot or staff of a commercial flight to help a friend (probably an employee) make the connection in time
I don’t think that Google Friend Connect is very social as it’s more like a badge that focuses on the individual!
That’s a bonus. I was thinking of moving my site http://www.kimbley.com to Facebook. Might stick with Google Friend Connect a bit longer.
Very cool! A portion of my traffic comes from Twitter so now instituting this on my blog is a no brainer. Thanks Google
Yes, but integration with Facebook will be more exciting for webmasters.
Why doesn’t Google allow me to log into gmail or other Google services with Friend Connect? It doesn’t seem logical. I really don’t care who wins as long as I can use OpenID to login.
I wonder when Google starts allowing Facebook Connect to access Gmail and other Google services. That way Google can make its “anonymous” services no-more-anonymous ^^ And I bet 99 per cent of the users wouldn’t even realize that Google knows all their details about ‘em *g*