Google’s Friend Connect To Spread Social Data
The software is part of an emerging set of technologies like OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial, and the data access APIs published by Facebook, Google, and MySpace.
Google on Monday announced a preview release of Google Friend Connect, a way for Web publishers to add social features to sites without programming.Google Friend Connect, available Monday evening, lets site creators add prebuilt blocks of code that handle user registration, invitations to view content, message posting, and other features, such as third-party applications (widgets) built using the OpenSocial APIs.
In a statement, Google engineering director David Glazer described Friend Connect has part of an emerging set of technologies like “OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial, and the data access APIs published by Facebook, Google, MySpace
” that aim to standardize the handling and presentation of social applications and data.”What Google is essentially doing is making it easy to tap into new, emerging standards around social features,” explained Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li in a blog post. “These standards specifically deal with identity (OpenID), data access rights (OAuth), and social applications (OpenSocial). These are all standards that have emerged in the past six months and are laying the foundation for open social networks. Friend Connect is Google’s way to make these new standards more accessible to Web site owners who don’t have legions of developers at the ready.”
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Google’s announcement Monday echoes related announcements made recently by MySpace and Facebook.
