Google Steps Into Data Portability Dance With Friend Connect

[KRISARU.com]

Google is releasing a preview version of Friend Connect, a service
designed to let Web publishers add social networking features to their
sites.

Friend Connect, which was due to be available on the Web sometime
Monday, lets publishers add social networking applications by
inserting “a snippet of code” in their sites, Google said.

“We’re seeing social capabilities get baked into the infrastructure of
the Web,” said David Glazer, director of engineering at Google, at a
press conference to launch the service. “[They’re] increasingly not
tied to any one site, to any one source of friends, or any one type of
application. We see the Web moving towards an end state where people
can use any apps on any Web sites with any of their friends.”

Thus, sites will be able to add features like user registration,
friends invitation and message posting, and allow visitors to interact
with their existing friends at social networking sites like Facebook,
Google’s Orkut, Plaxo and Hi5, according to Google.

“Google Friend Connect is like giving Webmasters a saltshaker full of
’social’ that they can sprinkle on their sites to add social
capabilities,” Glazer said. Source : PC World