Facebook Connect is wildly popular amongst many applications and even the big dogs such as Hulu and Youtube have Facebook Connect enabled. With Facebook’s staggering rise in terms of growth and users, pushing your content to Facebook is becoming basic common sense and Facebook Connect just makes this easier.
Digg, one of Facebook’s official launch partners, has had Facebook Connect implemented for a while. But now Facebook Connect dominates every page front and center right by the Digg logo. This is an obvious attempt to gain more traffic which seems to be Digg’s goal as of late (as well as it should be). While regular users will most likely log in to Digg with their normal credentials, this lowers the barrier of entry for new comers and plastering Facebook by your product adds a level familiarity on the web that few products have.
I am sure with Facebook Connect being put front and center that traffic will once again rise by significant proportions just like the Digg Bar. According to a PC Mag article, implementing Facebook Connect jumped user activity by nearly 50%. You can expect that to happen with Digg and with this direct placement of Facebook Connect I wouldn’t be surprised to see higher percentages.
The only thing that worries me about placing Facebook Connect right by the logo is creating an identity crisis for new users. Instead of Digg having its own name, you can surely expect new users to consider this a Facebook property of some sort. It will be interesting to see how Digg plays that one out if the situation occurs.
