Google Connect vs. Facebook FriendConnect

Within just about a day of each other, Google and Facebook launched competing products that do just about the same thing.  Both products are essentially an authentication and community system for a website.  However, although they do the same thing, the user base for each is quite different and important aspect for considering which one to implement on your brand’s website.

What Do They Do?

If you’re like me, you use a lot of the same websites on a daily basis.  (When I get to the office I have my favorite Internet Browser Google Chrome set to open the following websites instantly: Corporate Email, Corporate Calendar, Twitter, Facebook, and Pandora Radio.)  All but our corporate email and calendar system use different usernames and passwords.  This is kind of a pain.  Why not have just one login system that works across multiple sites?

Some sites require any password with 6 or more numbers or letters, some require just 4, some require a digit and letters, some require a symbol, digit, and letters.  Keeping all these password straight becomes frustrating, and more and more that “forgot your password?” button is getting used.  Another issue is security.  Even with all the different password requirements I use the same username and password for a slew of various websites so I can remember it.  Did you know that it’s possible for the administrators of that website to see your password?  A disgruntled employee etc could easily steal your username and password and try the combination on other sites.  This makes the idea of individually registering for every website almost repulsive.

One Login Across Multiple Sites

Imagine a day whenyou won’t have to register for each website and remember those countless passwords.  (This process has been in development for a while and the OpenID system has a nice implementation of it that’s becoming more widespread.  (However, it is our opinion that the good parts of OpenID will probably be merged with Facebook and/or Google’s system.)

Fixing this is the idea behind Google FriendConnect and Facebook Connect.  By using your “credentials” for either Google or Facebook’s system, you can have just one username and password for many sites.  For example: You’ll notice on the side of this post, we have implemented Facebook Connect.  By logging in using the Connect with Facebook button you can leave comments at the bottom of this post and on all of our posts and pages without registering for our site specifically.  All you need is a Facebook account.  (If you don’t have one you can register without it.)

Although Single Sign On or SSO as it’s known in geekspeak, is one aspect to these two systems, it’s not the best feature for website operators.

Community Building

The community feature is where the real value in the use of these products lie, especially for website administrators.  These two systems create almost a basic social media network just for your website.

Visitors to your site can connect with your content by having their Google or Facebook profiles and website tied to their comments and vice-versa.  They can also interact with other users of the site and potentially become friends with them.  This user interaction can quickly build stickiness to your site as a meeting place for users to interact. (One of the things we consult companies on is how to create a community on their site so users come back on a regular basis.)

What’s The Difference?

So the services both allow you to login using credentials from other sites.  They both have a community section.  They provide very similar features so what makes them different?

It’s The Users!

Let me begin this by saying I am a Google evangelist.  We currently use their corporate communications system called Apps.  I check Google News and Reader on at least an hourly basis.

Google’s system offers one nice aspect: you can use your Google, AOL, Yahoo, or OpenID login to interact with their system.  However, until their FriendConnect system, there was no real “Community” inside of Google users.  There wasn’t a place they met to share photos, leave comments for each other, etc.  Google was a place you got information, not really interacted.

Facebook has a community of 140 million users.  Each of those users spends on average over 21 minutes a day on the site (and that includes all the inactive users!)  There are millions of photos posted each month.  Facebook is social media.

Even on the email systems of Google, Yahoo, and AOL where currently the most interaction between users ocurrs, there are rarely photos, birthdates, work information etc.  People don’t want to interact with a grey box.  This community interaction is what creates the value and extreme time spent on the site of Facebook.  This removes much of the stickiness that is created in the Facebook system.  People want to see other people not a little gray box since they have no picture or information about them.  As a builder of a brand you want that stickiness to spill over to you and that is what Facebook Connect can do for your system.

Unless you are confident that your users are invested in Google, Yahoo, or AOL we highly recommend instituting the Facebook Connect system.

Here is Facebook’s Page on the system
Here is the plugin we use for our WordPress based website (Note it’s originally in Spanish, but very easy to use and implement)
Here is Google’s page on their system

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Tags: blog, community, connect, facebook, friendconnect, google, openid