Google Friend Connect

Google has became famous for their APIs that they create.  There are APIs for everything, Google Maps, Google Search, the famous Google Adsense, and even Picasa has APIs.  Google recently released Google Friend Connect.

You may be asking what is Friend Connect.   Google’s official blog states the following when talking about the API:

“This service lets webmasters add social features to their sites by simply copying and pasting a few snippets of code — no advanced coding or technical background required.”

Looks like Google really wants to push forward the social aspect of the web.    After looking a little at some example sites that Google set up, it seems Friend Connect is more like OpenID rather then just a social API.  The example sites state that Friend Connect is designed to work with a Google, Yahoo, AIM, or OpenID account, and promises that sites using the API will not require users to register an account just to post on a forum or reply to comments.

Hopefully we will see more of Friend Connect in the future, since it is getting harder and harder to determine who is who on the web.

Topics: Design, Google, Programming, WebMaster