I'm curious what other people's experience has been using FB Connect as a sign-in option for their web apps, especially those that use it exclusively.<p>It seems that many people, even "tech aware" younger users, don't understand FB Connect and may be suspicious of it. This makes me worry about all the majority of potential users, who on average will understand it much less.<p>Any idea what % of potential users will automatically refuse to use a service if it requires them to login with FB Connect?<p>I ask because the startup I'm launching soon will require users to login using their Facebook ID. I'm not worried about internet users that don't have FB, because they're not likely to want to use our site anyways (its a video chat application).<p>Also, many sites allow you to login with your FB ID, Twitter handle, Google account, or to create your own account. For my startup, there are specific reasons why offering multiple forms of login won't work, so we've opted to use FB.<p>Cheers.
I don't have a Facebook account (and I refuse to get one), so in the unlikely event that people like me are the sole target group of your application/website, yes - requiring FB connect will kill your startup =)<p>But like I said, it's unlikely.
Fb connect on main signup form, regular signup a click away: signups down ~15%.
Well-designed main signup form w/ fb connect as an option: signups up 8%.<p>30k new users per day, data statistically significant. Ymmv.
For a website, I offered login with Twitter, Facebook or custom username/password. I thought people would take the easy way, and use their FB login. Wrong! 90% of them chose the custom login + password.
Even though I may use FB connect to sign into a site, I (and I guess many others) would be deeply suspicious of any site that exclusively uses FB connect.<p>At the bare minimum, offer FB, Google and Twitter so people don't feel like they're coerced. (And you'll be surprised how many "not likely" people use a decent application if it's useful and you don't send them away).<p>My guess is that 90% of potential user will go away when you force them to use FB, whereas 70-80% of your potential user base will still find something not to like when sign-in is not a problem. (i.e., think about the conversion ratio from people who learn about your site to people who either go "ooh, I'm going to try this out" or "hm, looks interesting but whatever" - people are often walking a thin line between these options and shifting the line by making trial and sign-up as easy and convenient as possible will get you more conversions).<p>Otherwise, if you're willing to put your soul into FB's hands, do the full monty and structure your app as a facebook app. If you don't think that would be a good idea, think about why you're only targeting facebook users. (And do remember that "facebook demographic" and "actual facebook users" are very different things).
Stop wasting your time and doing fb connect. Just do the traditional method and test your idea fast and easy. FB connect will slow down your development and make it complicated.<p>FB has changed so much this year alone, you'll have to change each time they add something new.
I've already skipped a few services that sounded interesting because they used fb connect (I do have a facebook account). So, to answer your question, if enough people are like me, then yes it will kill your startup.
I'm a heavy FB users and <i>always</i> opt to create a separate login account rather than use FB Connect.<p>My understanding of FB Connect is probably flawed, but I don't trust FB to use whatever linkage/info they get from the login with my best interests at heart.<p>I also don't trust any app that requires FB connect as, rightly or wrongly, my suspicion is that any app requiring FB connect is out to spam my newsfeed and my friends news feed like Farmville does.<p>If the only login method is FB Connect, I just move on.
I personally wouldn't sign up for anything with FB connect, but who cares? Go for it. If you really must have just one form of login, then FB is by far your best shot. If it doesn't work, nothing else would have.
Firstly, Facebook really do "move fast and break stuff," and dealing with their APIs is both slow and aggravating. The app I'm working on has a lot of social functionality, which is why I'm bothering. (You may have similar plans). I've never implemented Google account login, but if I didn't care about the social stuff I'd be leaning towards that.<p>Are you doing a "hard launch" with lots of PR, etc? If so, I would be thinking very hard about the risks in being FB-only. A lot of people will never visit your site again.<p>If not, then you have more freedom to experiment. I'd be inclined to go with my gut, but: metrics, metrics, metrics. From day one you should know how many people are being pushed to authorize your application to know about their Facebook identity, and how many of them are coming back after clicking the "Authorize" button. Facebook has a dashboard which I haven't investigated, but it may be good enough for you to avoid implementing your own metrics.
Unless I specifically wanted your startup to be putting stuff into my facebook feed, I personally wouldn't log in to your (or any) site using a facebook account.<p>I'm a bit paranoid about the potential for 3rd party apps to publish stuff to my facebook account that I don't want them too - the whole facebook privacy thing is just too murky (I don't really understand what you could or couldn't do if I logged into your site with fb connect), so in general I just play safe and keep facebook separate from everything else.
Personally I would not use FB Connect unless you're already a name I can trust.<p>If I'm not wrong, when you use FB Connect, you can capture only the user id. The disadvantage is you are not able to build a meaningful customer database, but this also depends if customers info is important to your startup. Secondly your startup will live and die with Facebook. This makes sense only if your startup is a Facebook app.
Use OpenID. I never give my user information to another site, if possible. OpenID is the most portable of those implementations.<p>Edit: Ah, didn't see at first that you can only have one form of login. I guess you can use FBConnect (and that provides a significant user base), but I won't be signing up...
My experience is that it works as an added bonus, but shot our conversion rate down when we tried it as the only way to login.<p>Good luck, your going to run into some fun facebook errors.
If your site requires Facebook Connect for login, I will not use it. There's no reason for it if your site is not directly affiliated with Facebook, and it may result in privacy issues. Personally I think as soon as a viable alternative to Facebook exists I will stop using it anyway.