Was reading the final chapters of The Facebook Effect,  and when it mentions “Facebook Connect”,  ” a way to project information about the actions you take on other sites back to your Facebook friends as if they were actions inside Facebook”.

This is a key issue for Web social integration.  It is the Facebook strength, writ large and Web wide.  Facebook’s strength is its insight into leveraging the power of shared interests and building a powerful “Social database” out of those insights.

Church Websites and Web apps should be focusing on this.  There was a time when many church orgs were trying to do this ,  seeking to launch “User profiles” so that user behavior on their sites and with their data can be mined to enhance that user experience by becoming “smarter” re: what those users want to see and do.  This CANNOT be done with out user profiles.  Without them,  the site remains a “top down” server of content ,  and cannot be a the kind of community that is possible via the Web,  no matter how much they write artciles insisting that they are building community.

This, for me,  is a crucial theological truth for Churches seeking to be the church in the Web space.  And it cannot really be discovered in all it’s impact until one begins to see the social power kick in.  Facebook saw this early on,  and the apps and reach just snowballed and expanded exponentially from there.  I have been intrigued with thier concept of “Social Graph” ever since I first heard it articulated.

At its very simplest,  a pure traffic analysis of a user suggests a lot about the theological inclinations of that user. It suggests a gold mine of information crucial to serving that user the most relevant and eye-catching (and “soul enhancing”) content.  And it brings to light a clearer path to connecting people with theological commonalities they care about.

And Facebook is finding out a lot about users,  now after Facebook connect,  not just about what they do ON FACEBOOK,  but what they do on those other sites that employ Facebook connect (which is a staggering percentage of sites).  Wouldn’t Church websites benefit from knowing about what their users like and comment upon and view on other sites?  This is not “tracking” in the anonymous sense.  This is recording WHAT THE USERS TELL YOU they like.  They already know they’re telling Facebook.  Why would they mind if they are telling you?

The possibilities seem endless.