This week Google and Plaxo have announced that they've brough together OpenID, OAuth and the Google Contacts API to enable much simpler sign in, with the ability to bring contacts with you when you join new networks too.
(A great description of how it works can be found here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/10036)
This certainly gets close to matching Facebook Connect in most way, but misses out on two key features. First, there are no details of how other sites on we internet can use this functionality to benefit their members (like they can with FBC, albeit with some pain to get it implemented). Secondly, Plaxo and Google lack a central site with a common contact list and where details of activities on remote sites can be posted back to. OK, Google has quite a lot of e-mail addresses and Plaxo has 20 million users willing to volunteer more than that, but even combined the lack the cache of a network of 150 million people and 20% of the population logging in to check what is happening with the contacts they have (activities from FBC sites could be included in the Facebook newsfeed, driving traffic).
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