“Any app, any site, any friends.” That’s the corporate war cry emanating from search engine behemoth Google Inc. following the announcement of Google Friend Connect, a new service that helps Web site owners to build traffic by allowing the incorporation of social features onto any site.
Google announces widespread online social aspects with Friend Connect. Image: Google Inc.
Specifically, Google is looking for Friend Connect to allow non-social network site owners to embrace social aspects by simply adding a small snippet of code to their sites.
By doing so -- and without requiring any form of programming -- owners can then select from built-in functionality features such as user registration, invitations, members galleries, message posting, reviews, and even third-party applications created by the OpenSocial community.
According to Google, online visitors to any Web site using Friend Connect will be able to see, invite and interact with new friends. They will also be able to take advantage of secure authorisation APIs to interact with existing friends from prominent social networks such as Facebook, hi5, Plaxo, Google Talk, and orkut.
“Google Friend Connect is about helping the ‘long tail’ of sites become more social,” said David Glazer, director of engineering at Google. “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. 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 Glazer. “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.”
Beyond opening any site to social aspects -- should their owners wish to incorporate them -- Google is also keen to enable the online masses to enjoy the convenience of moving around their favourite Web destinations without continuously having to create a wealth of new log-ins and profiles and re-create their friends lists wherever they go.
While currently in its restricted preview stage, any site owners interested in learning more about Google Friend Connect and perhaps signing up for the official waiting list can visit the official site by clicking HERE.
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