Facebook has announced the expansion of its mobile platform at its event in Palo Alto this evening. But before you jump to any conclusions, Facebook is not building a phone. Zuckerberg said: “There’s been some rumours floating around that we’re building a phone. No…Facebook is social.” What Facebook is launching, rather than a phone, is Single Sign-On, plus a raft of improvements and additions to Facebook Places, that means we’ll all be using Facebook a lot more on our smartphones.
Single Sign-On allows third party developers to use Facebook log ins. Zuckerberg described logins as the biggest hurdle for getting users on apps, and said: “With some technology hacks, if you can log in once we can unlock a lot of experiences that haven’t been possible until today.” Which means that you’ll have to go through a Facebook one click login to get to apps.
Facebook Single Sign-On means it’s one click, and you’ll be in to the app that’s using it. Erick Tseng, Facebook Lead Product Manager, said that Single Sign-On was “pivotal”, and that “nobody enjoys logging in, and the experience on a phone is worse than on a PC. The more friction you add in to the log in experience, the more people stop using the apps. Single sign in removes the need to type in a user password again.” How this affects the information you’re sharing with Facebook though, is another matter, and it’s not clear whether you’ll be able to opt for logging in without Facebook.
Places will be vastly added to, to expand the Facebook Mobile platform. Facebook has already opened up its Facebook Places Read API for developers, and is now opening up Facebook Places Write and Search API. This means it’s easier for developers to use Places, but that’s not all…
It also equals Facebook Deals, which means that businesses can push discounts to their users more easily, in four different ways. Local businesses can pull in customers with loyalty deals, discounts, deals for you and a friend, and there’s also a charity donation check-in function. Deals will be rolling out in the US first, with no date set on when it will it our shores.
Zuckerberg said: “Our intention with Places is not to build a location app, it’s to build a location platform. All these details will mean that folks can build social applications in a deep way, without friction, and easily.”
What does this mean for privacy? Well, Facebook says that it works the same across Places – you can control what you’re sharing. In terms of third party apps that use these Facebook services, the information is not public, and all Facebook participation with third parties is opt-in.
What do you think about the expansion of Places and the addition of Single Sign-In? How worried are you about third party access to your information?
Check out the saccharine sweet video for the Facebook Places additions here:
Facebook has announced the expansion of its mobile platform at its event in Palo Alto this evening. But before you jump to any conclusions, Facebook is not building a phone. Zuckerberg said: “There’s been some rumours floating around that we’re building a phone. No…Facebook is social.” What Facebook is launching, rather than a phone, is Single Sign-On, plus a raft of improvements and additions to Facebook Places, that means we’ll all be using Facebook a lot more on our smartphones.
