Google Friend Connect to launch

Easily inserted, code-free social features for any site

12 May 2008 18:00 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Google is due to announce a preview release of Google Friend Connect, a service they say will help website owners grow traffic by enabling any site on the web to easily provide social features for its visitors.

On the logic that websites that are not social networks may still want to be social, Google Friend Connect will let any website owner can add a snippet of code to his or her site and get social features up and running immediately without programming.

Site owners will be able to "pick and choose" from built-in functionality like user registration, invitations, members gallery, message posting, and reviews, as well as third-party apps built by the OpenSocial developer community.

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.

Google Friend Connect will go into preview release as of 13 May for a "handful of whitelisted websites", while others will be able to sign up for the waiting list.