Facebook makes it easier to Connect

When I talked with Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in July, he said that much of his company’s future would play out not on Facebook.com, but on the myriad other sites across the web that use Facebook Connect.

Sure, Facebook’s user base was growing fast (it had topped 200m when we spoke, and recently eclipsed 300m), but Mr Zuckerberg said the real potential was in allowing users to log in to other sites, such as CNET and Citysearch, with their Facebook identity.

“That’s a lot of the future,” he said at the time. “A really interoperable graph of people’s identity that they can bring with them to other places.”

Today Facebook unveiled two new features for Facebook Connect that should help bring Mr Zuckerberg’s vision to fruition.

First the company announced Translations for Facebook Connect. Using a bit of crowd-sourcing, the feature enables sites to be translated into multiple languages by Facebook Connect users. This is the same technique Facebook used to translate its own international sites, which are now available in more than 65 languages.

Here’s how it works: The site chooses which text it wants translated, and that text then shows up underlined. Connect users then click on the underlined text, which brings up a dialogue box. In that box, they can either vote on previously submitted translations or offer up one of their own. The site owner then approves or reject the translations.

This may have worked for Facebook’s own sites, when users had an interest in making their local-language versions functional. But it may be a bit of a stretch to expect enough Connect users to fan out across the web and translate lots of obscure sites.

Later in the day, Facebook announced Facebook Connect Wizard, an easy new way for sites to adopt a light version of Facebook Connect. The details are a bit technical, but suffice it to say that in three steps, website owners can get it up and running. Early reviews were favourable.

The new features could get more sites using Facebook Connect. Already more than 15,000 sites have implemented it, and Connect Wizard should boost that number considerably by making the process easier. And with the promise of free labour, Translations could drive more international sites to adopt it, though the quality of the results has yet to be proven.

Still, the major content providers around the web have yet to adopt Facebook Connect. From Amazon to The New York Times, big sites feel like they have enough to offer that users won’t mind creating a unique log-on.

For now they’re correct. But as the web evolves, users may begin to expect a more social experience as they travel from site to site.

That’s what Facebook is betting on. It’s easy for users to create a few new log-ons; people are happy to do that. But creating a new social graph is time-consuming, complicated and tedious. It’s easier, reasons Facebook, to just Connect.