Facebook Connect - whats your opinion?

[Mortfiles]

I am considering adding support for Facebook Connect for my WHMCS and I am interested in hearing your thoughts, objections and opionions on such a venture, but please keep it constructive.

 

The thought is to provide an easy access through Facebook Connect so that new and existing clients can sign in with an existing Facebook account. It would provide an easy access for existing clients and for new clients it would/could remove or at least simplify the tideous signup process by simply pulling contact information from Facebook.

 

Once logged in Facebook Connect can pull in a customer avatar (I am terrible with names and like a visual representation if possible to avoid mixing people up) and also could add information such as country to add a little flag (possibly match with IP as well to ensure its correct). This will make the client more "alive" and not just a faceless cashcow, which I like.

 

A new section is added where clients can invite friends, possibly tied to the affiliate system(?) and perhaps even a section with friends that have joined are listed (visual representation of your affiliates?).

 

As I have posted before it can provide a very simply, first step, verification process as you can lookup the new clients profile on Facebook to see if it look ok (has friends, seem active, has pictures uploaded and so on). This is of course not a sure way to verify a person is real since anyone can sign up for a Facebook account, but it is less likely that someone put that much effort in setting up a profile than setting up a email account somewhere, especially since once you get caught your Facebook account will be removed and a mail account will not (most of the time).

 

Using Facebook as verification is of course not a reliable verification source, but it could prove a nice addition to other, more reliable ways.

 

My hosting business is very small and in many ways more intimate than a normal hosting business since most of my clients are friends and webdesign clients that I have worked closely with for a few months. Once my website is released next year I am probably going to see a few signups from complete strangers as well, but since I run my hosting in a very familiar way I think that a setup with Facebook Connect could work for me. For another company that are more focused on hosting on wider scale I am sure that such a setup would not be considered in a less favorable way.

 

Lets explain what Facebook Connect would do and how it would interact with WHMCS as I am sure none of us want to rely on Facebook for client information. On connecting with Facebook WHMCS will add a profile ID in its database so that Facebook is tied to a userprofile on WHMCS. This is the only data that is shared with Facebook, but in reverse WHMCS can pull data from the clients Facebook profile, such as name, country and so on.

 

So...suggestions, opionions and things I should consider before make a decision? Anything that I should be worried about, expand upon or anything else you can think of?

[redrat]

My first thoughts are that the idea is imaginative and attractive to a great many potential users of the kind of ilk that you envisage and have described so could prove to be a real winner. No one else is doing it, to the best of my knowledge, so get in there and be the first!

 

I can well imagine that many will baulk at this as with aeroplanes but I wouldn't let that put you off. FB has a massive and growing user base and, because it appears you are attuned to the FB niche culture you will probably think of other ways of leveraging this approach along the way to your advantage and enjoyment.

 

I will subscribe to this thread and watch it with interest. As an ex major London based publisher of glossy magazines it appeals to me as a good contemporaneous example of thinking outside of the box. It certainly has the potential to be a formidably competitive idea especially if you develop a marketing strategy that is geared towards blogging, web 2.0 sites and such like. That being the case, I should think very carefully indeed about your own site's design and content to make it sit well with this type of audience and end user.

 

I take your point about ID check augmentation but I would not rely on this and be sure to engage traditional security devices in parallel. In any case, security considerations are the least interesting aspect of the idea. Best wishes.

Edited December 28, 2008 by redrat
added something.

[Mortfiles]

Thank you redrat, I appreciate your input greatly.

 

I am setting up my goals for 2009 to integrate all areas of my website with Facebook Connect, both as a way to uniform the login experience and as a marketing tool. I have already added Facebook Connect support in all areas using Wordpress (Blog, portfolio and Article/tutorials section) and will continue with WHMCS and then my forum and wiki before I move forward.

 

Verifying ID through Facebook is of course nothing reliable, but I can use it to see if the person is a friend of an existing customer for example which could be a nice indicator. In many profiles you can also see adress and/or emails which I could use directly for a phone verification for example.

 

In many ways its simply a more reliable version of checking to see if a email is on any spamming list or reported to be a *, which is just a first step for anyone serious about verifications. I still think it will cut down on scammers as opposed to the traditional signup process, but it remain to see

 

There are of course many ways this can be expanded and used besides just a login, like the possibility to add clients as friends on Facebook where they can see what I am up to (and vice versa), using Facebook as a backup solution in case of catastrophic server failure so that WHMCS is not accessible (Just send out a message through Facebook and everyone knows whats happening), expanding Facebook presence for the company though its pages system to attract new clients, automatic newsfeeds in clients events feed when they submit tickets and much much more...the possibilities are endless

[redrat]

I'd love to see your finished site when you are ready to show it.

[R-n-R]

Strictly from a SEO standpoint this is a awesome idea, if the other guys aren't doing this, that's great!!! As you want to do what the others will not do. I would like to stay on top of your work to see how it goes and hopefully add it to my site as well.

 

My only question is why limit only to Facebook?

Edited December 29, 2008 by R-n-R

[mcraedesigns]

Find a "niche" is all I have to say.

 

Thanks Dave

[Mortfiles]

@ R-n-R and redrat

Once done I'll be happy to invite you to test it

[michelle]

I love this idea! It's definitely something I'd want to implement. My target market is definitely a niche market where many of my customers know each other and many are on Facebook. Keep us posted!

[redrat]

@Mortfiles: I look forward to that. Best wishes.

[Mortfiles]

Looks like there is a bit of interest in this after all

Now I just need to work out the details in a project spec and choose which way to go with the project in terms of payments and if I want reseller rights...

[Shahan@advertising.co.th]

Good Idea !

[jcorbett]

Mortfiles - any update on this? Have you completed something so we can test it?

[Mortfiles]

No, not yet. I have been down with a cold and still waiting for the funds to pay for it

I'll probably ask to have it setup by the end of the month if all goes well.

 

Would you want a headsup when I have it ready?

[jcorbett]

Yes please do. I would greatly appreciate it.

[Juanzo]

I have no clue on how hard would it be to implement something like this but I'd definetly use it and pay for it if the price is reasonable.

[mysmallbizu]

I have Facebook connect working with my jomsocial site - which is running off of my whmcs registered users db.

 

Was this ever completed?

[UNIXIELHOST]

I wouldnt put Facebook with WHMCS, too risky.

[mojowill]

yeah I would really think twice about having facebook involved, they are wide open to attack and security breachs those breachs would then have an impact on yoru system if linked in.

[BryanB]

I think it is a great idea except for the potential security threats. Has anything be done for this yet?

[mysmallbizu]

Authentication from Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Windows Live ID and OpenID authentication is available for all the major CMS softwares like wp and joomla as well as many billing systems like amember... Why does everyone think adding/sync a user in whmcs via api is a huge security risk?

[mojowill]

Authentication from Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Windows Live ID and OpenID authentication is available for all the major CMS softwares like wp and joomla as well as many billing systems like amember... Why does everyone think adding/sync a user in whmcs via api is a huge security risk?

 

Billing is a whole different thing to social networking, personally i think they should be completely diffferent.

[mysmallbizu]

I read recently in one of the major trade mags that the real value of facebook lies in the fact that it has unified authentication.

Think how few support tickets you'll have to answer when getting a user to figure out that their wordpress, joomla, billing, support, and hosting account details are available with a single email address and password!

[Real Webspace]

I read recently in one of the major trade mags that the real value of facebook lies in the fact that it has unified authentication.

Think how few support tickets you'll have to answer when getting a user to figure out that their wordpress, joomla, billing, support, and hosting account details are available with a single email address and password!

 

You raise an interesting point, but cPanel and hosting control panels will still need to have a different user name and password.

 

Also, honestly how secure if your facebook password compared to your online banking password(s), and would you want your billing system with all the passwords to their hosting account(s) accessible with the same password as facebook?

 

Personally my facebook passwords isn't terrible secure. By comparison to my billing accounts, or server passwords my facebook account would take months to crack compared to X x Y years .

[BryanB]

I just see this as a security risk because of all of the facebook phishing scams that are out there, if someone clicks on a fake facebook email and puts in their password that * now has your password to everything.

[HerrZ]

writing a facebook class should be very interesting.