March 14th, 2009
Facebook Connect launches desktop and iPhone integration
I think Twitter is so useful because it has many ways of updating: text message, desktop apps, web interface. Starting today, you can update your Facebook status via Seesmic’s desktop AIR app.
Interestingly enough, Seesmic owns Twhirl, so why wouldn’t they make it look just like the Twitter version?
I probably won’t use this desktop app because of the duplicate content on Twitter. A lot of people feed in their Twitter to Facebook status.
Look at Seesmic for Facebook and Twhirl for Twitter side by side:
Now your iPhone apps can have “friends”.
For example, Tap Tap Revenge 2 uses this new feature. You can play against friends, view social leaderboards, and post to your news feed. A few more games are launching with this new Facebook Connect (techmeme) for the iPhone, so keep an eye out.
UrbanSpoon is going after Yelp with their new iPhone Facebook integration. When you share your thoughts on the UrbanSpoon app, it broadcasts that to your Facebook friends. As you browse UrbanSpoon, you can also see what your friends like.
Flixster’s new iPhone app allows you to discover new movies that your friends like, find friends that want to see a movie, and keep track of what you want to see.
The web has made us way more social.
The new Facebook homepage redesign is hard to get used to, but believe me, it’s more interactive. The Twitter-like news feed updates automatically, so you can just sit there all day and see what you friends are up to.
Facebook Connect is the absolute best way to unite a community. You can goto a site with Connect installed, login with your Facebook credentials, and not only comment on the blog, but also have the story published back on your Facebook page. The social web just feels more natural because of Facebook.
Having to login with your Facebook credentials feels safer to people. TechCrunch, since installing Connect, has had more unique comments than ever. Geni has over 9 million family trees because of Connect.
Facebook also is working directly with Apple to make iPhoto more usable with Facebook.
Right now, Facebook is limited technically, but there is a fix. You can only have 5,000 friends, but you can have unlimited fans. And fan pages look like profile pages now.
Gary Vaynerchuk is a perfect example. His brand Wine Library TV has a fan page, and I bet that’s a better page for him to guage his audience because it’s unlimited.
Keep your eye on Facebook because it’s a bunch of young people doing really interesting things. They are moving away from this “walled garden” to a more open platform.
Andrew Mager is a web developer at Ning, Inc. in Palo Alto. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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