Google Friend Connect: Socialising the web

The web is set to become one enormous social network with the launch of Google Friend Connect, a free common social networking feature that can be incorporated effortlessly into any website.

by Helen Leggatt

google%20friend%20connect%20logo.jpg Just days after social networking sites Facebook and MySpace announced they would be allowing members to share their profiles across other websites, Google has entered the fray with the announcement of Google Friend Connect.

The opportunity for website owners is that they can now add social networking features such as message boards, widgets and member galleries effortlessly into their websites.

"Many sites aren't explicitly social and don't necessarily want to be social networks, but they still benefit from letting their visitors interact with each other. That used to be hard,” said David Glazier, Google’s director of engineering.

“Fortunately, there's an emerging wave of social standards -- OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial, and the data access APIs published by Facebook, Google, MySpace, and others," added Glazier. "Google Friend Connect builds on these standards to let people easily connect with their friends, wherever they are on the web, making 'any app, any site, any friends' a reality."

So what does this mean for marketers? It means that those that are not already tracking online conversations about their brand or product will need to readdress their strategy, and those that are need to expand those resources to include a wider platform of conversations. No longer will consumers be penned in to just a few platforms, every website now has the ability to become a hotbed of discussion.