Google Friend Connect Wordpress Installation

4 December, 2008 (20:38) | Blogging, Hot News, Social Networks, Tips, Useful Websites, Wordpress | By: User Image SocialMind

So Google, continuing with their quest to make it easier for website publishers to create interaction and community, have released their latest creation: Google Friend Connect

I’ve installed Google Friend Connect on this wordpress blog, you can see it on the left sidebar.

Google Friend Connect Wordpress installation can be done by uploading two files to your server and using the code snippets supplied in your templates or using a widget/plugin such as the text widget or executable PHP widget. *Update* There is now a Wordpress Google Friend Connect Plugin announced by the Social Arrow.

Google has done an admirable job of making Friend Connect into an open-ended web gadget it looks like. It literally took me 15 minutes to get Friend Connect up on the Arrow.

I decided on putting up the basics of a “Join the Site” box, allowing anyone to join with a few clicks using various accounts they already have setup like their google account.

As well, I put up a “Socialize” google friend connect comment box. It allows anyone to post whatever they feel like including video from youtube.

There are a few other gadgets available at Google’s Friend Connect site at present time, but as I said, they’ve left it open for developers to release their own gadgets it looks like.

Feel free to try out the features on my site, I’m going to continue the google friend connect installation with anything interesting as it catches my eye.

**UPDATE** I just wanted to post this quick note about what may be the most interesting part of using google friend connect on your Wordpress blog. The ability to use OpenSocial Gadgets directly within the community you create. To find out more about the OpenSocial foundation, visit opensocial.org.

12 Comments

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Richard Catto (Who am I?)

1 month ago
I applied in May 2008 to join Google’s FriendConnect beta and only this week got an email from Google telling me I could join, so I also added the thing to my blog.

I’m curious to see how well it fares. For the moment, it’s relegated to the footer where I can spare the screen real estate.

I’m going to use it and see if using it adds value to my Net experience. If it does, it will stay. I remember joining FaceBook and not seeing the use of it for a long time. I’m still not really into twitter. Blogcatalog and Mybloglog were joined and used for a while (mybloglog more so) but my interest in both of them quickly waned.

I think the reason for the latter is because both services wanted people to interact on their site, taking people away from the blog on which it was installed, whereas FriendConnect doesn’t have a central site it wants to lure people to it - it’s all about adding value to your site, not theirs.
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3.1
SocialMind (Who am I?)

1 month ago
Yes, fantastic points Richard.

Google’s Friend Connect is about retaining your visitors on your site it would seem. I’m just as skeptical as you are. So far though, I’m liking the way this service is shaping up..
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3.5
Richard Catto (Who am I?)

1 month ago
The thing I hated most about mybloglog and especially blogcatalog were the endless parade of link spammers posting comments and shouts on my profiles. That quickly became irritating. Both of those services should have been a lot more proactive about getting rid of the spammers, because they quickly erode social networks.

Btw, I can’t post a comment to your blog using Google Chrome. I gotta fire up Firefox (which is my secondary browser these days).
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3.7 (1 person)
Atniz (Who am I?)

1 month ago
Google always comes with a bang. But, for this, I will not going to put on my blog yet. Reason is. there are other type of bloggers network like mybloglog and blogcatalog available and I’m a fan of blogcatalog. Also, the size of this widget is a lot bigger and consumes so much space.
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3.6 (1 person)
SocialMind (Who am I?)

1 month ago
@Richard - Thanks for the heads up about chrome

@Atniz - the widget is customizable and this might just compliment your other blogger networks.. don’t get me wrong, I fully agree with waiting to see the consensus before changing a well established blog around like yours. This just happens to be my “experimental workshop”
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3.5
Wayne John (Who am I?)

1 month ago
Excellent find, I’m going to have something to check out over the weekend now. Looks like an interesting bit of work to play with.

Btw, not that it matters much, but I’ve added you to my list of Premier drop sites. That just means that I’ve put you on my links pages, and you’ll be seeing more of me now.

Cheers! Again, great find…I’m really intrigued by this.
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3.7 (1 person)
Krishna (Who am I?)

1 month ago
Google Friend connect or FaceBook friend connect? it’s hard to come with more users as compared to the FaceBook fans.What do you think?
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3.6 (1 person)
SocialMind (Who am I?)

1 month ago
@waynejohn Looking forward to your insights. I checked out your blog - I like it!

@Krishna Facebooks Friend Connect is pretty powerful too Krishna. Thing is, google is well aware of howto “enable” the masses. Facebook’s friend connect may not be quite so easy to install as Google’s for the average blogger. I’ve got a post on it drafted already, I’ll post it up tonight sometime.
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3.5
Jeff Kershner (Who am I?)

1 month ago
I hope someone builds a plugin/gadget for Wordpress that works for the comments like how you’re using sezwho.
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3.6 (1 person)
Manz (Who am I?)

1 month ago
Interesting post!

I’ve been trying to explain to my partner about “mybloglog and blogcatalog” - and how I thought it was weird that Google didn’t have anything like it.

They only recently added a “followers” plug-in/widget (forgive me - I’m bad a remembering terms!) for users of blogspot.

Not surprised to see this - how could Google get left behind!

(FYI: I wasn’t able to post comments using my Mac - on Safari… I had to get on the PC using Explorer).
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3.6 (1 person)
Manz (Who am I?)

1 month ago
By the way…
This new Google widget doesn’t work/show up on a Mac - running Safari. I just saw a blank box - but when I went on the PC, it worked fine.
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3.6 (1 person)
SocialMind (Who am I?)

1 month ago
@Manz Hmm, your not the first to mention the comments problem - I’m going to look into that further tommorrow - I’m beat! (I’m not an aussie, it’s almost 3am here )
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3.5

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