It started with an invitation. Then came the speculation. Now we have the confirmation. As our own @ChadCat is sitting at the Facebook headquarters in San Francisco, Facebook has just announced single sign-on at its mobile event.
Noting that sign-on typically has been a pain (“it looks like you’re getting phished”), Zuckerberg talked about changing the way that the sign-on process works for mobile. Handing over the microphone then to Erick Tseng, Facebook’s project manager for Mobile, Tseng gives us more insight.
Tseng says that “nobody enjoys logging in” even on a PC. The experience, he says, is even worse on a phone. “The more friction that you add to a login experience, the more that people are going to vote with their fingers” and not use the application. With Single Singon, you will only have to login once, extending the Facebook signon process to other mobile applications.
Launching with a few partners, the goal is to make applications easier to use:
- Groupon – Easier sign-up
- Zynga – Mobile gaming with a single sign-on
- Loopt
- SCVNGR
- Yelp
- Flixster
- Booyah
The new updates should launch today in the Android Market and by the end of the week in the App Store. As for what will happen with the partners who didn’t present today? That remains to be seen. But you can bet that you’ll see a user increase for all of them with easier sign-on processes.
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