Twitter Said to Be Working on Facebook Connect Alternative

The Internet identity landscape is about to get a lot more interesting if the latest rumor that Twitter is launching its version of Facebook Connect materializes. The war is being fought right now largely between Facebook and Google and the social network has a clear lead in mind-share snatching up some big-name websites which Google boasts a larger deployment base. Twitter is now set to launch a tool similar to Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect which will enable third parties to implement Twitter features and allow users to log in with their Twitter credentials.

TechCrunch says the product is very close to launch and that Twitter is already in talks with several publishers to implement the features. This move wouldn't be much of a stretch for Twitter technically as all the components necessary are already provided by the Twitter API including the login protocols.

The microblogging site already provides third-party sites with widgets enabling users to log in with their Twitter account. It also enables external sites to retrieve user data with their approval so the ground work was already there. What the new tools bring is a unified package and easy-to-use, embeddable widgets simplifying the process.

Twitter uses the open OAuth protocol, which it helped pioneer, for remote authentification and data sharing and this will also serve as the base of the new system. This sounds like a very plausible move from Twitter and could prove a very compelling alternative to Facebook Connect, though its potential is significantly smaller due to Twitter's size. Still, it has a lot more chances of being integrated just for Twitter's trendy status something Google Friend Connect is surely lacking.

Interestingly enough, Google Friend Connect actually supports Twitter logins and users can authenticate with their Twitter credentials to make full use of the Friend Connect community features. We'll have to wait and see what exactly Twitter reveals, if anything, but by the sounds of it, the wait shouldn't be too long.