At last count, I’d been using the Interwebs for over 14 years. In the old days, pickins were pretty slim as to which web sites I spent my time on. The landscape has changed a bit since the days of trolling through Lycos and serial sites for useless software. I’d be so bold as to say I’m not alone in feeling deluged with the number of sites now vying for my attention as a consumer and it’s really affected the way I spend my time. Lately, I’ve been trying to pair back the time I spend wasting away on the web (whilst listening to Joe Cocker sing “The Magic Has Gone”) and getting back to basics. I’ve got just a few go-to sites that I routinely use, and I search for everything else, ad hoc. Probably nothing earth shattering here.

Without going full blown Tim Ferriss on you, the fact remains that web-based companies should be doing everything they possibly can to offer convenience and lower barriers for their users if they have any hope of keeping them. At the same time, there needs to be something of value not just today, but every day, that’s going to get and keep butts in the seats. Just because your videos of cats doing funny things tickle my fancy today doesn’t mean my tastes won’t trend towards narwhals fighting unicorns or @shitmydadsays tomorrow. And if you can’t figure out what I want next, you’ve got a big hole in your canoe, but that’s another story…

At any rate, RV recognizes these challenges and we think about them a lot. In fact ‘make it as easy as possible’ is a veritable cliche around the RV office. Some of the features you might use on our site require you to login, which in the past meant you needed to have an account on RV. No big deal right? Fail. I have quite enough accounts and passwords already, thank you. I don’t care how worthy you think your site is of my time, I am lazy and already pulled in a thousand directions. Make it easy or I will leave, never knowing how much bliss was just past the login screen, end of story.

To address this, the latest feature we’ve implemented to this end is one known as Facebook Connect (FBC from here on). FBC is a feature that allows you to visit RV and login easily via your existing Facebook account. If you’re already logged into Facebook (which you should be right since you’re at work), it’s 2 clicks (no, really). If you’re not, it’s 2 clicks and your Facebook credentials (bonus: now you’re logged into Facebook at work). For anyone who cares, this is a concept known in the IT enterprise as single sign on (SSO), and is nothing new.

I’d like to think FBC is so easy, that it needs no instruction. Just in case though, find the Connect button on the login or register window and click it.

I like this feature, a lot. I think it’s a nice beefy arm for our site, and everyone loves a good beefy arm. Hopefully it’s useful to all you guys too.