Google Friend Connect is a free social networking site from 2008 to 2012. Similar in practice to Facebook Platform and MySpaceID, it takes a decentralized approach, which lets users build profiles for sharing and updating information (via messaging, photos, and video content) through third party sites. These sites act as hosts to share profiles and social exchanges.
Google Friend Connect uses open standards like OpenID, oAuth and OpenSocial and with the intention of freeing users from having to sign up for additional accounts or usernames. Once confirmed, they can use the existing profile and access the social graph when posting messages.
It is said that "Social networking APIs (how different services on the web speak to each other) such as [MySpace API, Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect take online social graphics outside social networking sites to external websites and applications." This social graphic feature allows users to post messages on third-party sites, but allows viewing access only to other authorized "friends" contained in user-selected social graphs.
Friend Connect is deleted for all non-Blogger sites before March 1, 2012, and for Blogger sites on January 11, 2016.
Video Google Friend Connect
API
Google Friend Connect API provides these features to website owners:
- Customize Google Friend Connect views to match the style and design of their website.
- Ads and website content tailored for individual user profiles.
- Querying content from a user profile.
Third party sites connect through social networking sites to contact users when they use the site. By recognizing user profiles, they can try to offer interesting content, based on available user profiles. Third party sites interacting with social connection services do so by adding HTML/JavaScript gadgets into their pages, enabling them to instantly modify or add relevant content (through altering the HTML code). Google Friend Connect requires approval from the website to use it. Does not require knowledge of web programming and allows any website to offer social and content applications from Hi5, Orkut, Plaxo, MySpace, Google Talk, Netlog, and other social networks.
Twitter, YouTube, and 30 social benchmarking sites have been added to Google Friend Connect since it started in 2008.
Some social gadgets are used to enable Friend Connect interactions. These include Social Bar, Comments, Ratings and Reviews, Featured Content, Polls, Recommendations, Events, and Games. In June 2009, Google added ClackPoint as a gadget. ClackPoint mixes live text chats, conference calls, and document sharing. Status icons in the gadget mean that users can see who's contacted and who's talking, and can poke or mute themselves or each other and the shared notepad allows many users to edit instantly.
The Google Friend Connect community widget can be inserted into the sidebar or footer to promote the content of the organization or site. Widgets that work similarly are BlogCatalog and Facebook Fan Pages.
Maps Google Friend Connect
Statistics
Approximately 200,000 websites are said to be using Google Friend Connect, and 2889 websites are on the most visited sites on the Internet. Google, however, estimates to have more than 5 million sites using Friend Connect.
99% of sites are said to be not socially activated prior to the introduction of Friend Connect services.
History
Google Friend Connect was first previewed on Google developers event in May 2008 and launched within days of the Facebook Platform.
At launch, Google mentions Friend Connect as "a set of functions and apps that allow website owners to easily create their social sites by adding signups, invitations, member galleries, posts and message reviews, plus apps created by the open social developer community."
In December 2008, Google Friend Connect became available to every webmaster who wanted to adopt a social app.
Official website of independent musician Ingrid Michaelson is one of the first websites used as a prototype by Google to illustrate the features of Google Friend Connect. A site by Google in Guacamole is another early sample site.
David Glazer, Technical Director at Google, calls Google Friend Connect a "plumber for the entire Web".
On November 23rd, 2011, Google Senior Vice President of Operations Urs HÃÆ'¶lzle announced that Friend Connect will be discontinued for all non-Blogger sites before March 1, 2012, and pushing Google pages and Badge Pages off the site as an alternate option. On December 21, 2015, Michael Goddard announced that the service would be shut down on Blogger on January 11, 2016, stating that "we've seen that most people sign in to Friend Connect with Google Accounts."
User data
There are three types of information that make up user data in Google Friend Connect.
- Identity data - offers an identity description and 'my profile'.
- Social-graph data - contains friendship connections that are family members, colleagues.
- Content data - Including stored data objects, like 'my messages', 'my photos' etc.
Privacy
Responsibility is left to each website to make a decision to allow Google Friend Connect services.
To access Google Friend Connect, signing in is through a Google Account or other services that support OpenID like Yahoo and AOL Instant Messenger.
Google claims to have five privacy principles. These principles set their guidelines for managing privacy. They state it;
- They use information with a view to providing users with valuable products and services.
- They develop products that aim to maintain strong standards and privacy practices.
- Their goal is to make all the information collected transparent.
- They offer users the option to keep an eye on privacy protection.
- They act as "administrators" who are responsible for the information stored.
Information that Google receives when Google Friend Connect is accessed
- Friend Connect's Friend activity on the site, including when they log in and interact with the site gadget, which of their friends they have been invited to join the site, which of their friends has accepted their invites and who their friends are on Friend Connect sites. This information is said to be necessary to provide users with Friend Connect services and to properly display any content (only to those people whom the user has chosen to share it with).
- If someone chooses to invite friends from their current social networking site, Google will request a list of their friends from the site to send an invitation. Depending on the site, Google may also receive limited information about the friends, such as nicknames and photos. Google will not store this information for more than 24 hours.
- For users who have links in their Twitter account, Google also accepts and stores its username and password; They use this information only to provide service to users and will remove it if they decide to disconnect their Twitter account from their Friend Connect account.
- If the site uses a gadget developed by Google, then the information collected by the gadget will be governed by the Google Privacy Policy.
However, violations were reported in November 2010, where exploits allow users to harvest email addresses for incoming users when visitors use the website. This is an example not just a security breach, but privacy for its users.
Request information
Personal information is required to create a Google Account (email and password to protect unauthorized access). If an OpenID account is used, Google does not receive information from the identity provider. User activity on the Google Friend Connect site is stored in connection with a Google Account or a user's OpenID account.
Users determine whether they want to publish their activity on a particular Friend Connect site to their activity stream on their social network (by default, this is set to off). If they choose to publish it, their activities (posts, reviews, etc.) will be sent to their social networks and anyone who has access to their activity stream will be able to see this update. In addition, if they use Friend Connect to invite friends from their existing social networks, the social network will receive the information necessary to forward this invitation to their friends.
What site owners see
Google Friend Connect never provides site owners with user's personal login information. Google Friend Connect and signed-in services - not site owners - validate their login credentials. After someone joins the Friend Connect site, the site owner can see the user's nickname and the date when they become a member. Site owners will also be able to see a person's image and the content they choose to publish on the site, such as wall comments or reviews. Site owners also have the ability to remove members from and moderate content on their sites.
ID]] user name and user-generated information from the site. However, it will not receive information from friends or friends who are invited.
Third party sites may collect user information unrelated to Google Friend Connect services - users are responsible for reading the privacy policies of third party sites to see what information these websites collect.
Competition
- Friend Connect Sites (Google, Myspace, and Facebook) appear at the same time and therefore experience competition throughout the development phase.
- Google and Facebook announce their plans for Friend Connect sites within days of each other.
- In May 2008, Facebook blocked its users from using Google Friend Connect. The block is the result of Facebook's concerns with Google's privacy policy because Facebook believes user information can be redistributed to others without the user's knowledge. Google responds by saying that "users control their data at all times"
- "A few hours after Yahoo announced its planned implementation of Facebook Connect on its network of sites, Google announced that Twitter credentials could be used to register on the Friend Connect Google site".
- In 2009 Google Friend Connect changed the installation process. It no longer requires the need to upload any files. This change occurred two days after Facebook Connect modify the installation process.
Features
Language
When active, website owners set the language of their site, and then allow users (through their Google Friend Connect account) to translate selected content into their own language.
Mapping
Users often have multiple usernames and passwords if they register with more than one social networking site or third party site. Social Networking Services, such as Google Friend Connect, are meant to remove the need for multiple signups by allowing links from user accounts on social networking sites to their accounts on third-party sites.
Personalization
Personalization is meant to be accomplished through gadgets. Gadgets like 'Interests', allow third-party sites to post bulletins to subscribers to the site and to customize bulletins based on user feedback.
Google Friend Connect has an 'AdSense' feature that allows Google to advertise based on site content and user interest shared by the user.
See also
- Facebook Connect
- Google profile
- Facebook Platform
- MySpace ID
- OpenID
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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