Yelp, the user review site aimed at finding the best local shops or restaurants, becomes another big player to adopt Facebook Connect, the login standard that is becoming increasingly successful for the company. After having just been adopted by TV.com, a major player in the online video and community site market, and a multitude of small and large businesses, it looks like Facebook Connect is on its way to becoming the de facto login standard, just what the company always wanted.
“As the bonafide social media addict here at Yelp, it's with great pleasure that I get to announce – you guessed it – a new feature that lets you share your Yelp reviews with Facebook Connect and Twitter. Many of you have been using a variety of social media platforms to further share your Yelp reviews of local businesses. Today we’re making that process much easier by presenting Yelpers with the option to seamlessly broadcast their Yelp reviews,” writes a public relations representative on the company's blog.
Users of the site can now share their Yelp reviews with friends and family through some of the two most popular social networking platforms out there, Facebook and Twitter. The process is nothing new and it's simple enough. After users finish a review they will have the option to share it on the two social networks. Sharing it on Facebook requires a one-time login using Facebook Connect and Yelp also adds the photos uploaded for the review.
Facebook Connect is becoming quite popular but the company would likely want it to become ubiquitous on every site or service online, and the reason is simple. With Connect it controls the game and, as sites grow more dependent on visitors coming from Facebook, which is becoming one of the major sources of traffic for many websites, it might one day, not very far into the future, begin to challenge or even overthrow Google to become the lifeblood of the Internet.