How Facebook Connect and Other Technologies Are Weaving the Social Graph Throughout the Web
Here’s a piece I wrote up a little while back that I neglected to share on this blog. It’s a tad dated, but I think the implementations below are still some of the most interesting out there.Most of us have heard, read and experienced the phenomenon of the social graph, which can be defined as the network of personal connections through which people communicate and share information online.
When used correctly, the social graph is an immensely powerful data set that can provide significant competitive advantages for a wide range of products. Only three years ago, leveraging the social graph was nearly impossible because accurate social graphs were the domain of leading social networks; they could not be influenced by products and services, which made failed attempts to build out their own. This resulted in widespread social network fatigue, as consumers and advertisers tired of building out already existing social networks.
Then, Facebook famously created its application platform in June 2007. This allowed developers to build applications that could leverage the social graph on Facebook, but it was limited because these apps couldn’t live outside Facebook’s walls. Today, developers are more fortunate — through technologies like Facebook Connect, MySpace ID and Google Friend Connect, social graphs are available on any platform — Web, desktop and mobile, and more and more sites are leveraging them for better engagement and traffic. CNN’s collaboration with Facebook Connect for the inauguration, for instance, resulted in 136 million page views and 21.3 million live video streams by mid-afternoon on the day of the event.
Tens of thousands of other Web sites have integrated social graphs into their interactive experiences and the initial results are quite positive. According to Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti, in the four months the site has been testing Facebook Connect, 94 percent of reviewers have published reviews to Facebook, where an average of 40 people see them and 70 percent click back to Citysearch, all translating to a tripling of daily registrations. Gawker Media has also reported positive numbers; three weeks after implementing Facebook Connect, user registrations were up 45 percent and comments were up 16 percent.
Despite these successes, we still feel that most of today’s implementations are scratching the surface of what’s possible. Here are five examples that showcase some innovative uses of Facebook Connect.
Rethinking registrations
Example: HerHotSpot, an online community for female 20-somethings
How it uses Facebook Connect: Facebook Connect is the one and only registration system for HerHotSpot, allowing the site to guarantee that all members are indeed female by checking the gender listed in their Facebook profile. Previously, HerHotSpot had difficulty convincing its users that the site was a safe place for women to talk amongst themselves.
Personalized entertainment experiences
Example: Prototype game trailer, a promotional movie for a video game
How it uses Facebook Connect:
Prototype, a video game for PS3 and Xbox 360, uses Facebook Connect to create personalized game trailers for each visitor of their promotional website. Once connected, the Prototype trailer seamlessly integrates photos and basic profile information from Facebook into the movie being shown, creating a highly compelling and personal experience.
Promoting brand content
Example: Joost, an Internet TV service
How it uses Facebook Connect: Joost knows that content from a user’s social graph shouldn’t be hidden deep within the site. It aggregates the most recent Joost-related actions of user’s friends and displays them prominently on the homepage in the familiar news feed format.
Providing a cross-platform gaming experience
Example: Scrabble, the popular word game
How it uses Facebook Connect: The Scrabble iPhone app allows users to find their Facebook friends and play live Scrabble games with them — no matter how they are connecting to the game. It offers a perfect cross-platform experience, allowing friends to participate both through the iPhone or on their computers using traditional Facebook applications.
Collaborative shopping with friends
Example: Fluid Social, a provider of social shopping software
How it uses Facebook Connect: Fluid Social users are treated to the following social enhancements while they shop:
· The ability to automatically see reviews or comments from friends on product pages.
· The opportunity to easily solicit opinions by posting a public request or personally messaging select friends.
· The chance to chat about the product in real time with any friends currently logged into Facebook — without leaving the product page.
Tapping into the social graph from the desktop
Example: iPhoto, Apple’s photo management tool
How it uses Facebook Connect: iPhoto ‘09 uses Facebook Connect so users can easily publish photos to Facebook without ever leaving iPhoto’s desktop application. Users of iPhoto can even tag their photos with their Facebook friends and apply privacy settings, allowing only certain groups to access the pictures.
