Comments on: Q: Facebook Apps – How to Sync FB Login with Non-FB Login?

By: Joe Cure

Joe Cure — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:41:13 +0000

Steve – A little off topic, but I liked you comment on the Techcrunch Whuddleworld post. Seems like a perfect match, almost worth it for TY from a marketing/branding standpoint alone (not to mention the enormous upside if it actually was successful)

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/27/who-wants-to-buy-a-virtual-world/

By: Chris Keller

Chris Keller — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 23:03:50 +0000

Hey Steve, check out the Socialight application on Facebook (and register on their site). You’ll see the way they do the syncing, although I only believe it’s one way.

The concept is really not hard, you just ask for their insertdomainhere.com reg info in the Facebook app, and on the main site you ask for their Facebook info and you’re done. Save both, you’re good to go.

By: Dean Landolt

Dean Landolt — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 16:07:10 +0000

KwangErn above nailed it. Without collaboration from Facebook you’re just wasting your time. What keeps them from changing their mechanisms and breaking your app on a whim?

Again, that’s where OpenID comes in. And if Facebook won’t come around on OpenID, why bother supporting their platform?

By: nate

nate — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:37:03 +0000

I believe you can allow the user to login with their facebook account, and then give them a link to your site using their profile id. You may need to check it against a facebook cookie or something, but I think that’s how Magnolia does it.

By: Michael St. Hilaire

Michael St. Hilaire — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:12:59 +0000

I would think you’d need to capture the user’s facebook login/pass on the ilike site. With that you could log in as that user to facebook and scan the info to synchronize it. Not very elegant though, there must be a better way

By: KwangErn Liew

KwangErn Liew — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:54:45 +0000

Without close collaboration between two parties, it won’t go far. Unless you rely on a (loosely) third party to handle authentications, like a proxy, which I doubt many would like.

That’s why OpenID is such an awesome project.

By: Zvi Band

Zvi Band — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:09:09 +0000

Steve,

Of course there are many different ways to do it, but here’s my recommendation.
1. User adds Facebook App
2. User goes to their page on the application (within Facebook), and are asked to “sign in” using their ilike.com/whatever credentials. Or, if they don’t have an account on the main system, they can register as well.
3. Your system associates their login credentials with the Facebook user ID, and never asks again.