Preview Videos of Google Friend Connect Social Networking

Google is starting to roll into preview mode on it’s Google Friend Connect service. Friend Connect is a new set of tools from Google that allows any website owner to add social networking to their website by simply entering a simple snippet of code.

The platform offers site owners user registration, invitations, members gallery, message posting and reviews and a library of widgets and gadgets built by the OpenSocial developer community. The social capabilities actually appear in an iFrame. When you head to a Friend Connect site, you get to decide who to bring into the new site with you, for instance you can import all of your Facebook friends, or just some of them. Once you are all on the new site what you can actually DO on the site, is up to the site you are visiting. Options include commenting on the site, ratings and posting.

An interesting sidenote is that not only do you have the social surfing option, and the ability to decide which of your friends get to see what you are up to on what sites, you can also send all of your activity BACK to the main site that you are signed in with. So, for instance, as I surf the web logged in with my Technology Goddess ID, all of my comments and activities on other websites that I choose to also post back here will show up in my Friend Connect here.

You may get to see this in action sooner than expected, as Technology Goddess is on the waiting list for the early release preview.

Here is a great video from the Google Friend Connect Website that covers the basics, because this app is based on the OpenSource project, it’s my guess it will go viral and we will start to see it popping up all over the web soon as users start to connect their profiles, friends and online activity.

Here is a PowerPoint Presentation of Google’s OpenSocial Presentation from AjaxWorld… VERY interesting! ~Erika