Facebook Connect to rule social world
Everyone you've ever met will be everywhere all the time
Facebook is about to take a big leap out into the wider cybersphere. The Facebook Connect service allows you to log in to other websites using your Facebook account, and goes live today.
You can now log in to CBS's online celebrity rag, The Insider with one click (if you're already logged on to Facebook).
This allows you to invite your friends to join you browsing stories about a truly scary-looking Gary Colemans' driving problems or Jada Pinkett Smith's fabulous parenting skills. It also lets you easily post any bitchy comments you make on other sites back on your Facebook feed.
Insider job
To be honest, there's little on The Insider to detain any sane adult for long but it does reveal how Web 2.0 sites have to continually expand to survive. Expect more interesting sites soon that extract (with your permission) info and photos from your Facebook page and use it at other online destinations.
TechCrunch speculates that Facebook Connect with eventually replace the controversial and advert-heavy Beacon service that was widely criticised for helping itself to Facebook users' personal information at every opportunity.
Connect certainly promises a lot but one glance at the dreadfully designed profile pages on The Insider, for example, shows just how quickly things can go wrong once you let your social networking genie out of its bottle.
Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
Mark Harris is Senior Research Director at Gartner.
Ugreen MagFlow 2-in-1 Magnetic Wireless Charging Station review: fantastically low price, but faster charging would’ve been nice
I'm buying one of these cheap home security cameras to watch over my apartment this Cyber Monday - and you should too
I've picked the 26 best Cyber Monday camera deals I'd buy as a serious photographer, including Sony, Canon, Insta360 and more