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Microsoft has suckered up to Facebook's social graph API with the implementation of OAuth 2.0 on its Windows Live developer platform.

The company announced plans to hook its next version of Microsoft's Messenger Connect coder system into the open authorisation standard in early May, when its ID expert Kim Cameron quit Redmond.

In effect, Microsoft wants its Windows Live platform to plug more seamlessly into social networks, with Facebook being the clear endgame here.

The dominant social network doesn't offer the same interconnection with, say, Hotmail via its site. Instead, controlled elements of Facebook's social graph simply feed out of Zuckerberg Towers into often less popular landing pages on the web.

"Nearly all Windows 7 PCs come pre-installed with Messenger, Photo Gallery, and the other Windows Live Essentials apps - just connect Facebook, LinkedIn, and other services to get a wide range of rich features like Facebook chat and social feeds in Messenger, photo publishing with people tagging in Photo Gallery, and all your contacts seamlessly available across Windows Live," said Microsoft's Messenger Connect platform messenger Dare Obasanjo.

"And of course, you just have to do this once and your connected services roam with you to Windows Phone, Hotmail, and more."

The OAuth 2.0 standard allows users to type in their credentials once, before being able to share content with other sites and devices.

"Not surprisingly, developers want access to more integration scenarios via more modern standard protocols, in ways that are easier to program against, with a simpler experience for end users of their apps and sites," said Obansanjo.

In other words, the company is now chanting a single sign-on mantra for its online estate.

"This means users don’t have to re-enter their credentials. To use this, all a partner site or application has to do is to ask for the wl.signin scope when requesting user consent, and afterwards, if the user comes to that website when they’re signed in to a Windows Live ID-based site, they will also be signed in to the partner site or application," he said.

"Signing out of the partner website will also sign the user out of other Windows Live websites."

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