Yesterday, both Facebook and Google launched their universal login platforms, Facebook Connect, and Friend Connect. As you can see to the right, Popple3.com is already Facebook Connect enabled. You can click the connect button to login right now.

For a brief period I had Friend Connect in the sidebar too, but it just seemed pointless to me really. I couldn’t use it to create local WordPress accounts to authorize comments. I would have to replace the WordPress comments with Friend Connect comments, making Facebook Connect AND Popple3.com accounts pointless. Maybe I missed something, but really Friend Connect seems like Disqus with a slightly more social aspect to it.

Based on the last paragraph I think it’s quite obvious which is the better platform in my opinion – Facebook Connect. It allows for full integration with any website, it’s all down to the developer. It’s a bit harder to set up, due to there being PHP involved, but still, totally worth the effort. It also posts actions to your Facebook feed if you choose to do so. I hope that sites all over the internet implement this in some way. Facebook will be launching a WordPress plugin soon, but until then you can still use (the not so great) Sociable.es plugin. With some editing, you can get a good proper functioning Facebook integration, as you can see right here.