Google on Monday confirmed rumors that it would release “Friend Connect,” a service that helps Web sites grow traffic by adding features. Essentially, Friend Connect gives sites the ability to add social components, according to a press release.
Here are excerpts from the release:
“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.
To
illustrate, independent musician Ingrid Michaelson has added music
features from iLike with Google Friend Connect and is now able to run
the iLike OpenSocial application on her official website (www.ingridmichaelson.com).
As a result, starting tonight, fans who visit Ingrid’s site can connect
with their friends without having to leave the site. Visitors will be
able to see comments by friends from their social networks, add music
to their profiles, see who is attending concerts, and enjoy other
features of the iLike application, all at Ingrid’s website. With Google
Friend Connect, people will be able to enjoy their favorite features
with their friends on any website across the web.
“We want to
bring ourselves to every eyeball, not bring every eyeball to us,” said
Hadi Partovi, President of iLike. “Friend Connect is a significant
opportunity for iLike, artists, and fans. The iLike Artist Dashboard™
will be the first content-management system that allows artists not
only to post their songs, concerts, and videos to every leading social
network from one dashboard, but also to simultaneously manage the
content on their own websites.”
(Note: Russ Whitman commented about Google’s Friend Connect last week.)
