How Facebook Connect Closes Doors
A lot of people have been asking about Facebook Connect and how it may or may not be used for Social Media Ministry in terms of our personal properties (blogs, ministry websites, portals, etc).
I’ve been hestitant to blog about it (except the news-flashy-type) because I’ve been having a lot of doubts about it. Thankfully, Chris Brogan gave me the “gift of going second” (love this term! OffTheBlogs.com used it recently…).
See, the basic premise is that while using a 3rd party login system / chatting system / social platform to power your blog you’re actually limiting yourself to the amount of data that you can capitalize and data mine long term. Instead of you being able to directly manipulate and leverage the data, Facebook, Google, etc has all of that and you don’t have direct access to it.
Essentially, as Chris points out, you’re giving up control. I’m not really down with that.
You see, ever comment and every “interaction” on this blog here is under my control, almost literally. I can track where you’re going and what you’re doing and I’m not piping anything back to Google or Facebook (although the bottom Google bar is somewhat of an experiment… expect that to disappear soon.).
People have been clammering to “get connected” and become “more social” but I don’t believe having those platforms on your blog “makes” it more social. I think it enables a different way to engage, but not necessarily a beneficial one.
It’s up to you, ultimately, how you want to engage and interact with your users. I can see pros and cons to the argument, but for now, I’d like to control the data.
And if I’m able to better establish robust relationships through the mining of my data then I’d rather keep that control than have something “cool” like Facebook Connect.
What do you think?
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20 Responses to “How Facebook Connect Closes Doors”
Facebook Connect Gets a WordPress Plugin - ChurchCrunch
[...] might remember how I wrote about how Facebook Connect Closes Doors and how I am, personally, against the use of it at this point, but I know that many of you [...]
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That's exactly it. If someone comes on here and uses words stronger than "poopy," you might want to vote them off the conversation. Simplest use case to point out what you miss with using FB connect. Beyond that, you can't message people, you can't do the basics of marketing.
I've been watching the Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect with a little confusion. I really don't see many benefits to either yet. Maybe as they both mature, they will turn into powerful tools. If they really add benefits to bloggers and users, then we will be willing to give up a little "control," but until then, it's just another experiment.
John, thanks for posting about Facebook Connect. It's something I'm working to wrap my mind around. It sounds like one downside to using Facebook Connect is loss of control, but the upside may be increased participation. I mean if using Facebook Connect means you lose some control, but double your visitors or your visitors read or post twice as often, would it be worth it? – Paul
i doubt you'll double anything unless you EXPLICITLY make an initiative or program to do so… and see, that's the point. that's much less the application and much more you, the initiator or community organizer. nothing moves without leadership.
According to this article in PC Word, "Facebook says the sites involved in early testing reported a 50 percent jump in user engagement."
http://www.pcworld.com/article/154990/first_look_...
Maybe not double, but I know a lot of site owners that would take a 50% jump in engagement in exchange for lost of some control and data.
Yeah, but those guys are interested in one thing: traffic. Although we may as well, that's not our bottom line goal (or at least not for me).
Facebook Connect was very attractive to me at first because of the ability to add blog interactions to the Facebook news feed. BUT… It just didn't work very smoothly for me when I tested it on a blog. It was taking much longer to load the page, people were not showing up correctly, avatars & personal info were not matched up, etc. I do agree that the data management is critical but I won't even worry about that until we're talking about a product that works flawlessly.
John, I agree with you that controlling the message and what you want to do with the data after is important. As a marketer, I would add the FB connect as you do Twitter to announce blog posts and the like. That is the chatter, this is the meat. If the goal is to get people here, use these as "teaser sources" All good.
I agree, in retail I have been learning how critical it is even to have basic info like where people live who frequent your store.
Ultimately though I would suggest that the real issue we are discussing is the competition to become the universal identity for any given person on the internet. Is it a gmail account, your facebook ID, your openID, your intense debate account, your blog, your lifestream, or some combination of the above? Not only that but where will it be hosted and by whom?
Ultimately speaking the very center of community, that of personal identity as part of the whole, is being put up for sale to the highest bidder. In someways the competition is helpful, but philosophically speaking I wonder if the eventual result will be more harmful than good.
Here's a personal example, I have commented enough here on ChurchCrunch to hit your top 5, but ultimately speaking I have probably given you more content than what I have written on my blog in regards to original composition and hunter-gather type stuff. Where is my identity, <a href=”http://danielcberman.co.cc” target=”_blank”>http://danielcberman.co.cc or here on ChurchCrunch through my intense debate profile?
First, I love Chris's comment. He has a good memory:)
Second, you tracking abilities sound rather scary. Sounds like you must be a spymaster. I better lock down my computer quick:)
Playing bad cop: Are we reaching out to people where they are or are we data mining?
Answer: how can we best “reach” if we don't “understand”? And how do we “understand” their usage so that we can reach them? Data mining is a standard term.
The quick and dirty answer is “both”.
i agree, i'm social enough naturally. i'll find it on my own if i want it. i'm SO sick of Facebook.
There's (almost) always PROs and CONs with anything, and Facebook Connect is no different.
What an individual website may lose in terms of "control" is a gain for the users that want to use web apps in a more social manner with their Facebook network of friends. And, yet, the web app itself could still require the same level of user profile info to stay connected with the web app (right?). So, depending on how you dice & slice, you can actually gain more user engagement for your web app because of Facebook Connect.
But you will always lose control. If that's worth the engagement, that's fine.
But there's always a deeper danger of giving a 3rd party information when you never know if that service will be there in tomorrow, next week, or next year.
haven't heard from you in a while bro. how are things going?
I'm new here, but I found this blog through some searching. I have some of the same questions that a lot of you do; however, it may become a moot point. Huffington Post is now using Facebook Connect. It's becoming a defacto standard option. If people start viewing it that way they will expect to have that option. Also, using Facebook Connect increased the potential viewership of your site exponentially. Even having said all that I'm a little hesitant due to the lack of integration with wordpress.
Just because huffington post uses it doesn't mean it's becoming “defacto”… does it? I think there's wisdom in both camps, and ultimately it's about the end user, right? the industry and audience are also important.
good points tho. glad you're here!
For us it's ultimately about the page views. More page views means more money. It's also about getting more people to see our content. We spend a lot of time on our content and the bigger potential audience of Facebook means more people have an opportunity to view that content.
There's a good reason right there!