• Cnet, Tuesday, December 2, 2008 12:15 PM

Cnet's Rafe Needleman explains the controversy surrounding the decision to allow Facebook Connect onto the site. For starters, he says that Cnet's own log-in system is much-maligned inside the company by factions who want it changed, or in some cases, eliminated. Still, others feel the company should be collecting more information about Cnet's registered users.

The controversy underlines the importance of the log-in/registration system. "The value of a Web service lies in its users," Needleman says. "More users means more opportunities to profit -- by selling advertising based on what you know about your users, by selling the users services directly, by skimming a portion of the revenues users generate by traveling through your site, and by selling information about the users. If a site doesn't 'own' its users, how can it profit?"

Well, it can't, which is precisely why the decision to allow Facebook Connect on CBS' sites (CBS owns Cnet) is controversial. The new realization by Facebook and other companies that collect detailed information about their users is that "You don't need to chain your customers to your store to get them to buy things from you." Facebook Connect and OpenID are basically centralized identity services, which will use their data and your data to profit. That's not to say that allowing them on your site is a bad thing, Needleman says, especially not for users, who want more than one way to access a Web service. And ultimately, these are the customers that you are serving.

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