Facebook is launching a new registration tool for site owners, which utilizes a single line of code. "For users it means quicker ways to sign up for new sites with Facebook, while seeing what information they’re sharing, and which friends have already connected," a representative for Facebook tells WebProNews.
The company refers to it as an alternative to Facebook Login (which is the current name for Facebook Connect), when you want to provide an option for users without Facebook accounts, your site needs additional info that Facebook doesn’t provide, or a traditional HTML form suits your site more.
"For users who are logged into Facebook, the registration tool will pre-populate fields with information they’ve already entered on Facebook, saving them time and specifically showing what information the website is requesting," the rep explains. "Nothing will be shared with the website until the user decides to connect and click ‘Register’."
"Website owners can also customize the fields to ask for additional information, which the user can enter without sharing any information back to Facebook," she adds. "Once an account is created, the site will become customized for that person, filtering content based on the actions of their friends, such as comments, reviews and likes."
The tool actually has the potential to increase conversion rates (possibly e-commerce sales).
"By minimizing the friction associated with signing up for a new account and making it easy for people to bring their friends with them, we’ve seen that people are more likely to complete the sign up process, stay on sites longer, share more content and come back more often," says Facebook’s Paul Tarjan. "For example, in beta tests with FriendFeed, Facebook sign ups increased 300%."
This will no doubt be an attractive offering for a lot of site owners, considering how important the Facebook-hosted social graph is becoming to the web. If it can increase conversions and it only requires a single line of code, lots of sites will likely jump on board.