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Thursday May 22, 2008
First thoughts on Google Friend Connect
Once upon a time, about five or six years ago years ago, Google was just my search engine. It allowed me to find things previously hidden on the vast and ever expanding world wide web. Then my friends discovered Googlewhacking – searching for a two word phrase that returned just one search result – and all the amusement that could be gained from entering a first name or a message board username into Googlism.
But, up until now at least, Google has not been my social network. Then, on Monday, Google announced a new service: Google Friend Connect.
The press release from Google states:
"With Google Friend Connect... 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.Sounds good doesn't it. Sounds like a way to increase word-of-mouth promotion of your site, as members invite friends to join them on your website, as their actions – such as posting comments – are added to their social networking profiles. And there are advantages to users as well: a single log-in for any website which uses the Google FriendConnect service, for example, means no more remembering so many different passwords.
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."
I can see this working on some websites. Google gives an example of a website about guacamole where users can rate recipes and give comments. I wouldn't care if my friends on Facebook knew what I thought about adding chillies to the dip.
However, on other sites, perhaps I'd rather be anonymous. I was thinking about TheSite.org this morning, and about how it's a great way for young people to find the information they need in a totally anonymous environment. Now say, I was to 'join' a website similar to TheSite.org using Friend Connect. When you set up a user profile, Google Friend Connect gives you the option of choosing a nickname to use on that particular website, and to nominate which social networks you'd like to broadcast your activity on. Say, I join the hypothetical website wanting to make a comment about a travel article – something I don't mind my friends knowing about, so I use my real name as a nickname and choose to link my activity on the site to Facebook. Then later I come back to the site and log-in. There's a 'settings' link where I could change my nickname and my social networking options, but I'm not automatically reminded about it. And say, I (being a hypothetical 'I' as well) then make a comment on an article about mental health or drugs – and suddenly this appears on my social networks: and then my friends know, and family members know, and colleagues know, and the whole benefit of the anonymous internet has been lost.
I was a member of MyBlogLog for a couple of weeks last year, before I started feeling uncomfortable about my icon appearing on the blogs I visited. While I thought it was unlikely that other users would want to follow my avatar through the blogosphere, building up a picture of my browsing history, there was always that chance...
When it comes down to it, I guess I'd like to keep my website browsing and my social networking separate. That's a personal choice and it's one that, as Google FriendConnect spreads, more and more of us might have to make. But installing the FriendConnect code on a website in the first place is also a choice, and one that is, despite the obvious marketing advantages it may bring to an organisation, worthy of further contemplation.
If you've got thoughts on any of this, feel free to leave a comment below.
(You don't have to use your real name).
Posted by Natasha Judd ( 4:45 PM ) Link to this post Comments[3]
