New technology for browsing sites

SOCIAL utility Facebook has introduced a switch on system that enables users to browse other sites via the networking portal called Connect, using their login credentials to access other websites.

The system also gives feedback about what a Facebooker’s friends have been doing on those partner sites.

Among the first sites visitable through Connect will be the Discovery Channel, social news site Digg, and video site Hulu.

Connect was first announced in May this year and is Facebook’s response to the work of rivals, such as MySpace, who have rolled out similar systems.

All the sites are keen to ensure that they do not become a place that members visit but are the only place they have to go to as they can use their login information to get at content anywhere else.

Behind the initiatives are software projects that open up the basic interfaces for the social sites, so that others can understand how they format data about members’ activities.

The built-in socialising tools on sites such as MySpace and Facebook will mean that friends can virtually gather, for instance, to watch a video via Hulu and chat about it all in the same place.

By making a social site an all-encompassing portal, the hope is that they will become more attractive to advertisers.

Facebook said it would vet all those sites that wanted to sign up to Connect and review what they will do with data gathered about members. This way it hopes to avoid the bad public relations image it created a prior to the introduction of the programme known as Beacon.