• The Economist, Friday, December 5, 2008 11:46 AM

On Thursday, Facebook announced the general availability of Facebook Connect, a service that allows its users to stay logged into their Facebook accounts while surfing other sites. The idea here is to save users from having to fill out yet another registration form or memorize another username and password. It essentially allows them to visit other sites using their existing Facebook identity.

The Economist calls Facebook Connect "an ingenious stab at solving several nagging problems at once." Prior to FB Connect, users could post links back to their social network by clicking a button that said "Share This" or something similar. Now, Web users can interact with friends while on another site. For example, they can see what news stories their friends are reading or how they rated a story or what comments they left while on a third party news site.

The report points out that this greatly lowers the barrier to entry to new visitors who don't want to go through the hassle of registering just to interact with a given site. In exchange for allowing Facebook users to stay signed into their accounts on their site, Web site owners are granted access for one day to the visitor's public information on Facebook. Dave Morin, a Facebook Connect manager, calls this "dynamic privacy", meaning that wherever they are on the Web, users will be able to take their privacy settings with them, choosing who among their friends will and won't be able to see what they're up to.

Read the whole story at The Economist »