adopted this would extend the reach of Facebook’s “OpenID”-like universal web login to the entire, rapidly growing mobile platform.

It’s Facebook Connect moved to mobile. That catch is that you need the Facebook app, and it has to be running. But all smartphones now allow apps to run in the background, and there are already 200 million people using Facebook on mobile phones — up from 65 million only a year ago.

So, who needs to get into the phone business?

“It is bigger than Android or the iPhone,” Zuckerberg told a press conference in San Francisco, adding that the company had no intention of making its own phone. “There’s been this rumor floating around recently that Facebook’s going to build a phone. No.”

The three prongs of Facebook’s platform are single-sign in, a locations service that apps can read and write to, and a deals platform that is tied to locations.

In layman’s terms, that means that if you have your Facebook app open on your phone and you download a new app, you can create an account on that new app simply by clicking “Sign me in via Facebook,” and then clicking “Give Permissions” on your Facebook app. No new usernames or passwords are necessary to create an account.

Facebook is gambling that this inconvenience has kept many people from using apps, and that app makers will embrace the easy code integration that saves them from having to write their own login systems.

Facebook members will have to decide whether the convenience is worth allowing the social network to become their default identity provider, whether they want to share their public profile and friends with every new app they put on their phone, and whether they want to always have Facebook’s app running on their device, optionally broadcasting their online presence at all times.

The system works only with apps, but Facebook said they are working so that it will work with mobile browsers as well. Then, you will be able to log-in or create an account on a new web service as well as any app using your mobile phone with just a few clicks. It’s a natural, the company said, because the boundaries between apps and websites are starting to dissolve with the power of HTML5.

Location-aware applications can now use Facebook’s giant database of places so that when you check in via services like Foursquare, Yelp or Loopt that information feeds directly into Facebook’s Places so that it is as if you checked in via Facebook.

The third prong is the mobile platform Facebook is offering local businesses a way to offer deals to people nearby. Someone using their phone can look for a nearby business, such as a coffee shop, and see what coffee shops are close and which are offering coupons. You then “check in” to claim the deal, show your phone’s screen to the cashier and get, say, a fifty percent-off deal on a latte.

Businesses can also make virtual loyalty cards, so that every time a customer checks in they get a virtual “punch” on their coffee card.

“What’s been missing with location check-ins is the ability for that local business to be able to communicate with me,” said Facebook director of product marketing Tim Kendall.

Early partners for deals and rewards include the Gap, Palms Hotel and even the Golden State Warriors, which is giving people who check in at an upcoming game an invite to a VIP event featuring one of their basketball team’s players. Limited to the U.S. at the start, the service is free for businesses to use.

Zuckerberg closed by saying that social is just as hot as mobile, and that there are many industries and companies that can be disrupted by introducing a social layer.

“You can rethink any product area to make it social and have it grow viraly because people use the app their friends use,” Zuckerberg said. “And we want to be part of that disruption.”

Follow us for disruptive tech news: Ryan Singel and Epicenter on Twitter.

See Also:

• Facebook Connect Is Now Generally Available. Let the Identity Wars Begin
• Today Facebook, Tomorrow the World
• Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative
• Is Facebook Planning a Phone? Who Knows. Should It? No
• SXSW: Facebook Connect Goes Mobile, Arrives on the iPhone …
• Report: Mobile Geo-Marketing Not Where It’s At, Yet

Authors: Ryan Singel

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