answered my own question (purely by luck).
While trying to figure out how to get facebook and twitter to update from one location instead of having to login to both websites, I accidentally came across this.
http://openid.net/A solution to multiple logins across the world wide web! hallelujah.
Not just some fly by night operation mind you. it is backed by big names in the business. Yahoo, google, myspace, facebook, twitter and more.
As for updating twitter and facebook, there is a cool twitter app for facebook that does the trick, right from within facebook itself. One stop shop. Love it.