Following key data portability announcements from MySpace and Facebook, Google May 12 introduced a service that helps Web site owners add social features for their visitors without having to do any programming.
Google Friend Connect lets site operators add a snippet of code to their Web sites to add user registration, invitations, member galleries, message posting and reviews, features that are increasingly becoming the norm rather than the exception online.
The news comes as industry experts claim that socialization tools will drive more traffic to Web sites, keeping visitors to consumer sites engaged and sticking to the site longer than they would normally. Increased user stickiness boosts the probability that those users will click on ads, adding more pennies to the piggy bank for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or whoever a site's chosen ad partner is. Sites leveraging Friend Connect will let users see who is online and invite them. Moreover—and here is Google's data portability entrée—site owners will be able to use secure APIs to create a bridge between their sites and other social networks, including Facebook, Google Talk, hi5, orkut and Plaxo. Google provided an example of how this works in statement. Independent musician Ingrid Michaelson has added music features from iLike with Google Friend Connect to run the iLike OpenSocial application on her official Web site. Michaelson fans who visit her site will be able to see comments by friends from their social networks, add music to their profiles, or even see who is attending concerts, ostensibly making her Web site a mini walled garden for creating communities of Michaelson fans. Resources for
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