Google Gets More Friendly, Fights Facebook

Will Google’s new Friend Connect help Webmasters add a “dash of social” to their sites? That’s what the search giant is promising with today’s announcement.

The idea is to make it easy to let Web site owners add social networking features like chat, games and ratings by simply copying and pasting a few lines of code. For users, that means instead of having to create an account on a Friend Connect-powered Web site, they can use their Google ID instead of yet another login and password to remember.

Facebook has something similar with Facebook’s Connect service, which uses a consumer’s existing Facebook ID info to validate them on a site outside Facebook.

In the latter case, your activities on Facebook Connect sites, such as
posting a review, would be automatically reported back to your Facebook
friends if you set up your profile to follow your activities.

Google, a prime backer of the OpenSocial initiative, offers a broader of access points for its new offering. You can gain entry to Friend Connect features using Google ID info, as well as Yahoo, AOL, or OpenID.

You can also create an entirely new profile. Friend Connect lets users post profile information and find out about each other at these Connect-enabled sites much as they would on a social networking site like Facebook or MySpace.

Chat and other features are available from a list of gadgets at the Friend Connect site. A
Google promo video said “there will soon be an endless number of other
social gadgets you’ll soon be able to add.”

Also, Web sites that use Friend
Connect automatically become “OpenSocial containers” capable of running an
emerging cross-section of applications from the OpenSocial developer
community, said Google product manager Mussie Shore in a blog post. Friend
Connect is an OpenSocial application.

There’s no restriction on where Friend Connect might be added, be it a fan
site, blog or merchant site.

The race is on?

Kathy Sharpe, CEO of digital marketing agency Sharpe Partners, said if this
is a social networking race, she gives the early nod to Facebook. “It’s
completely on brand for Facebook because that’s what they’re known for,
social networking,” Sharpe told InternetNews.com. “Google’s known for
algorithms and search.”

On the other hand, Sharpe said Google has a better reputation for security
than Facebook, but she also thinks
Google will have to change some of its past practices to be successful.

“This is Facebook’s game to lose, they have the brand. It’s not a zero sum
game, but Google hasn’t shown it believes in marketing. Microsoft finally
learned what Apple learned years ago, you have to market to be successful,” said Sharpe.


Meanwhile, Sharpe notes Web site operators get to benefit from being
associated with the Facebook brand. “That’s what you want to reach the 35
and unders,” she said. “And then Facebook will have all this data. I don’t
exactly what they’ll do with it, but I suspect they’ll find ways to use it,
not in a selfish way, but to benefit their members, help them connect more
with one another and add value.”

She expects the next big area of growth will be mobile where you’ll be able
to take this kind of universal ID and participate at different sites
designed for mobile.

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