Google Friend Connect Launched

Posted by Arun

December 8, 2008

Friend Connect Logo

Google Launched yet another Feather to its Cap with the release of Friend Connect Beta with the caption “Grow traffic by adding social networking features to your site”. Google is everywhere and I have no complaints!

Friend Connect Beta makes it easy for users to sign in to a website, share a bit about themselves through a personal profile, discover other people with similar interests, invite their contacts, and interact with friends, all through their existing account from Google, Yahoo, AOL, or OpenID.

Google’s been working with a handful of website owners, social networks, and application developers to improve Friend Connect’s speed and scalability, ease of use, and customization capabilities. They’ve also expanded the features available to users with more integrated profiles and new ways to discuss and share content, like including YouTube videos in comments.

Websites that use Friend Connect become OpenSocial containers, capable of running applications created by the OpenSocial developer community.

How does it work?
Visitors of your site can

Sign in with their Google, Yahoo, AIM or an Open ID Account
Interact with other visitors by making friends, sharing media, posting comments, playing games and more
Invite friends from other social networking sites

Getting Started

Log in to Google Friend Connect and register your site. It’s an easy process
Choose your gadget and paste it anywhere on your page
No third step. You are done

Benefits

Anyone can join and get updates on your site with their existing accounts with Google, Yahoo, AIM or Open ID
Visitors can invite someone to your site
Gadgets will keep the visitors deeply engaged with your site and with each other

For more information, visit Google Friend Connect.

Technorati Tags: Google, Social Networking, Traffic, Gadgets