My title wasn’t supposed to sound like Borat, and although I thought about re-writing it, I didn’t. Success! Anywho, Google announced a new service that helps website owners grow traffic by enabling any site on the web to easily provide social features for its visitors.
While this service is currently available through plugins, Google promises that “Friend Connect” will be programless (is that a word?). And we all know, where Google goes, everyone follows.
Websites that are not social networks may still want to be social — and now they can be, easily. With Google Friend Connect (see http://www.google.com/friendconnect), any website owner can add a snippet of code to his or her site and get social features up and running immediately without programming — picking and choosing from built-in functionality like user registration, invitations, members gallery, message posting, and reviews, as well as third-party applications built by the OpenSocial developer community.
Visitors to any site using Google Friend Connect will be able to see, invite, and interact with new friends, or, using secure authorization APIs, with existing friends from social sites on the web, including Facebook, Google Talk, hi5, orkut, Plaxo, and more.
For Site Owners: Traffic and User Engagement
Without requiring coding experience, Google Friend Connect gives site owners a way to attract and engage more people by giving visitors a way to connect with friends on their websites.
* Drive traffic: people who discover interesting sites can bring their friends with them, and can opt-in to publish their activities on those sites back into their social network, attracting even more visitors.
* Increase engagement: access to friends and OpenSocial applications provides more interesting content and richer social experiences.
* Less work: any site can have social components without hiring a programming team or becoming a social network.
Google Friend Connect is in a preview release, available tonight after Campfire One on a handful of whitelisted websites. All site owners interested in learning more about Google Friend Connect and signing up for the wait list can visit http://www.google.com/friendconnect/ starting tonight. In the weeks ahead we will be turning on more sites, adding more social applications, and integrating feedback from site owners and developers.
Currently, the “Friend Connect” site is not running. But here’s what you can expect:
written by Tony Clifton
\\ tags: Connect, Engagement, friend, Friend Connect, Google, Network, OpenSocial, programming, service, site, tonight, traffic, user, way, web, Website
Only time will tell if these little plastic toys are the add-on to Guitar Hero merchandise. McFarlane currently produces toys for all venues, so no surprise if these guys are prominently displayed in mini Guitar Hero Heroes, whew.
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