First Look: Facebook Connect Bound For Success

in your hands. If you don't want your data shared with a particular site, you don't sign up with it. Or if you want to use your Facebook account there but not have the information relayed back to your profile, you just check the appropriate box when you initially sign on. It's a major shift from the failed Beacon experiment, and it's one area where Facebook Connect has a distinct advantage over Google Friend Connect, which was also introduced Thursday.

So far, Facebook says the sites involved in early testing reported a 50 percent jump in user engagement. For people who are really into social networking and use Facebook -- and, let's face it, that's a massive number nowadays -- Facebook Connect will offer a powerful new layer of interaction across the Web. It may not be the first system of its sort, but it could just be the first one to make a significant splash.