When you spend time online, chances are you end up logging into an e-mail service, a social network, a news site and other Web sites.
Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to juggle all of those different user names and passwords?
Web developers have been asking the same question for years. Late last year, the idea of a universal login finally began to go prime time -- with the providers seeing it as a possible revenue source.
In December, search king Google GOOG and social network Facebook both announced the general availability of universal login services, ending the restricted test periods for Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect. Google also touted a partnership with Facebook's main rival, News Corp.'s NWS MySpace, whose MySpaceID universal login service is ramping up as well.
Each of these login services lets people sign onto other sites across the Web using their existing accounts with Google, Facebook or MySpace. For example, Facebook has put a Facebook Connect login button on partner sites such as CBS' CBS TheInsider.com.
Internet users are drawn to single sign-on services because they're more convenient than using the login processes of individual Web sites, says John McCrea. He is vice president of marketing for Plaxo, an online address book and social networking service owned by Comcast CMCSA.
They're able to avoid "going through this completely dysfunctional dance of generating a user name-password pair" and "filling out the same profile information they've filled out hundreds of times before," McCrea said.
That convenience also should help Web property owners attract more users and subscribers.
"It's actually pretty difficult for those sites to get users to sign up and fill out a lot of demographic targeting data," McCrea said. "The friction associated with that is potentially deadly to their business. Any kind of system that enables them to get users on board in one or two clicks is, right out of the box, interesting and worth looking at."
Facebook has said its studies show that people are twice as likely to sign onto a Web site using their Facebook account as to use a site's own login procedure. Besides TheInsider.com, other early adopters of universal login services include the Web sites for Interscope Records, a division of Vivendi's Universal Music Group; and Citysearch, a network of city guides owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp IACI.
For social networks, universal login services could be more than just a nice extra for their users -- they could become a new, and much-needed, revenue stream.
These online hangouts have struggled to make money by selling ads on their sites, and some analysts say an ad-based model just won't work for these networks.
But analysts expect that eventually there will be revenue-sharing agreements between MySpace or Facebook and the Web site owners that use the social networks' sign-on services. Many sites work well with advertising but have trouble getting users to log into their sites and to provide demographic data. That prevents them from targeting their ads and thus making the ads more effective -- and more of a moneymaker for the sites.
Social networks, though, have valuable demographic data, but they've struggled to make money on ads. So analysts see a high likelihood of revenue-sharing agreements based on the social networks providing demographic data to the Web properties' ad operations.
"If Facebook is enabling TheInsider -- or other media sites or retail sites -- to make more money, then Facebook should be getting part of that revenue," said Charlene Li, a former Forrester Research analyst who now runs the Altimeter Group, a research firm focused on social media.
Li said Facebook Connect and similar offerings "are definitely a way for (social network sites) to grow their influence, and because of that they'll be able to monetize that influence."
The main difference among the single sign-on services is that Facebook Connect is based on proprietary technology, while Google Friend Connect, MySpaceID and others use an open identification standard called OpenID. Some people in the field say the difference makes Facebook's product easier to use.
"Facebook Connect, because it's a closed system that's developed entirely by one organization, has a bit of an advantage in terms of a sort of elegance," McCrea said.
Web properties relying on OpenID and related open technologies have to deal with some "small pieces loosely joined," which can lead to "a bit more complexity," McCrea said.
But he adds that one startup, JanRain, has a universal login product that addresses the complexity issue. It provides a simple software-as-a-service solution based on OpenID. Plus, OpenID has the advantage of being a consistent standard with lots of big-name supporters, including Yahoo YHOO, Microsoft MSFT and AOL, Time Warner's TWX online business.
Microsoft marketed a single sign-on service several years ago called Passport, but it never caught on. Passport failed in part because users feared Microsoft -- then facing antitrust charges -- getting access to too much of their private data. Analysts stress that the new crop of universal logins will have to win users' trust.
Li says Facebook is especially focused on providing privacy settings with its Connect product after a backlash in 2007 against its Beacon service. Beacon had broadcast Facebook users' purchases on external Web sites to their friends, upsetting many users who weren't aware that it was happening.
A main feature of Facebook Connect is that it broadcasts to users' friends what they're up to on partner sites, such as what articles they're reading on a news site. That's a plus, because users control what is broadcast, Li says.
"There are a lot of people using (social networks), and they want to bring a lot of the features, friends and content that are inside (the networks) out to their activities in the general Web," she said.
McCrea sees the universal login products as just one piece of a broader change.
"The way that I think of it," he said, "is that we're in the midst of a pretty major transformation -- the transformation of the Web itself going social."
Source: Investor's Business Daily
