I just added Google Friend Connect to the right column of this blog.
Why did I insert this application into my blog? Because the new trend is to interact not only on social networks like Facebook or Twitter, but also across social networks. “Open social” or “outside the walled garden” is the jargon. The idea is to use one identity across multiple websites.
As Stan Schroeder explains, Google’s Friend Connect brings “all social networks to your website’s visitors.”
How Friend Connect works.
Watch this short video from Google for their concept of Friend Connect.
The video suggests that Friend Connect has the potential to create communities for a blog, ecommerce site, fan site, mashup, and more.
If you would like to join the Friend Connect on this blog, just log in using an existing account in Google, Yahoo, AIM, Netlog or OpenID. Or create a new Google account and join.
Friend Connect in Action
Handmade Contemporary Jewellery’s website has a large Friend Connect community, using a number of social features. These include a friends’ map, site wall for comments, friend chat, and a Flickr feed of everyone’s messy desk pics. Here’s their Friend Connect page.
Handmade Contemporary Jewellery's Friend Connect page
The open-source content management software called Joomla has build-in integration with Friend Connect. Handmade Contemporary Jewellery’s site is built in Joomla and uses this functionality.
Social Applications Available
As you just saw, to use Friend Connect to its fullest, you don’t just gather members. You also give them ways to interact on your site. To do this, install its “Social Gadgets,” which at this writing are:
Social Bar – easy access to Friend Connect features
Comments — comment and link to videos
Ratings and Reviews –rate, review and comment on pages and posts (Installed on this site. Please join and try.)
Events – promote events to community
Recommendations– recommend pages of sites that you like
Scroll–images of community
Clackpoint– live audio, video and text chat with community
Polls–add and display polls and pics of those who voted (Installed on this site. Have not figured out where to set up the poll yet.)
Get Answers – encourage members to ask and answer each other’s questions
Commenting Plugin for WordPress
Managing Friend Connect
Ok, what work is involved to run this on your site or blog?
It looks fairly simple to me. You can block troublesome members. And you can choose to moderate comments or not. I would think you should, but then again, having comments post immediately is more gratifying to users. Let me know what you think about this in a comment.
Why Something Like Friend Connect is the Future
Schoeder explains the implications: “Friend Connect is the first big application of OpenSocial, immediately showing its strength: suddenly, it’s pointless to create a website widget that’s dependent only on one service when Friend Connect lets you tap into all of them at once.”
And here’s social media expert Simon Ford, an Australian, on where Google Friend Connect is headed:
Simon likens Friend Connect to an “underground tunnel” which has the potential to connect all Google’s products. In this video, he describes how adding someone from Friend Connect allows you then to connect by email (Gmail), location (Google Latitude) and video chat.
Late last year, prominent media strategist Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Research, noted its “social shopping” implications: “Now with connective technologies like Facebook Connect, Google FriendConnect, and OpenID, consumers will now be able to see reviews, experiences, and critiques from people they actually know and trust.”
And for a skeptical opinion, here’s Marshall KirkPatrick from ReadWriteWeb: “Google FriendConnect is ugly and seems pointless until you tie it to the as-yet-untested system called Latitude, where Google knows your every waking move around town.”
Why I’m Adding Friend Connect to this Blog
Now to answer the question in the title. I’m adding Friend Connect to this blog because the web is moving in the direction of “open social.” And because this application is an effort by a huge player to explore those options. And because, to understand what’s good and bad about new concepts, you have to try them.
Comments? Connect through Friend Connect on this blog?
Again, I invite you join this blog’s Friend Connect to experiment with an “open social” approach. Please let me know your experiences with Friend Connect on your own and other sites in a comment.
Good Links
Friend Connect and the End of the Fragmentation Era, Stan Schroeder, on Mashable
Social Networking Arms Race (Facebook Connect vs Friend Connect.) Now the race is taken to a new level with Facebook’s purchase of Friendfeed.
Update: Google Friend Connect Becomes More Like a Social Network
New features, described on Mashable post.
