From today, prompts for Facebook Connect will appear on websites across the internet, enabling those with a Facebok profile to import their profile and friends to participating sites, says The Guardian. They include CitySearch and Digg.
This means Facebook fans don't have to remember another user name and password, and users can publish what they do on Digg, say, back to their mates on Facebook.
Obviously this saves users time and sites are keen to participate because it will drive traffic to them - Facebook has over 100 million active users. On the other hand, given the size of the beast, it would be quite easy for smaller sites to end up feeling like a Facebook satellite.
Perhaps they have other causes to worry - Facebook users are being targeted by the Koobface virus which exploit the site's messaging system to infect PCs, then tries to extract information such as credit card numbers, according to Reuters.
Nothing daunted, The Guardian points out that Google too made an announcement this morning. It read, 'Google Friend Connect is now available in beta to any webmaster looking to add a 'dash of social' to his or her site. This service lets webmasters add social features to their sites by simply copying and pasting a few snippets of code "” no advanced coding or technical background required.'
So they aren't offering quite the same thing - Facebook Connect lets you link things to its home, closed environment, while Google Friend Connect enable any website to add social networking.