Chris Bucchere, founder and CEO of bdg, the company behind the conference social networking solution The Social Collective gave me the scoop on their upcoming Facebook Connect integration.

The Social Collective is bdg’s first SaaS offering: a Ruby on Rails-based social networking application for conferences that allows attendees to mix and mingle online before, during and after conferences.  The site recently hosted the WIRe and ICES IC Enterprise 2.0 Conference, as well as the RubyNation conference.  They also powered the final 2008 BEA Participate conference along with AquaLogic Interaction (now Oracle WebCenter Interaction).

In a recent Twitter exchange, Chris confirmed that an upcoming build of the Social Collective will include Facebook Connect integration.  When I asked why the Social Collective chose Facebook Connect as a first point of integration, his answer was pretty straightforward, and perhaps expected: in part because Facebook Connect was somewhat easier to integrate, and in part because the integration into the activity feed for Facebook makes it easier to get the word out about the site, and allow friends and family of attendees to “virtually attend” conferences.

With the outlook for the economy still looking cloudy for the next year or so, low-cost social networking alternatives for conference attendees could be a possible method for some conferences to retain attendees who want to participate without incurring the company costs of traveling.

Filed under: Consumer Web, SaaS, Social Computing