We love Pete Cashmore’s insight into the future landscape of social media.

Next year’s Twitter? It’s Foursquare

By Pete Cashmore, Special to CNN, November 19, 2009 1:18 p.m. EST

Editor’s note: Pete Cashmore is founder and CEO of Mashable, a popular blog about social media. He is writing a weekly column about social networking and tech for CNN.com.

London, England (CNN) — As 2009 draws to a close, with Twitter undoubtedly this year’s media darling and Facebook continuing on its path to global domination, you may wonder which social-media service will become tech’s poster boy in 2010.

Among the Web’s early adopter set, the answer is nearly unanimous: Foursquare.

While the technology landscape is ever-changing, I’d argue that Foursquare already has aligned itself to become next year’s mainstream hit.

The Twitter connection

Birthed by the team that brought us the mobile social network Dodgeball (acquired by Google in 2005 and later shuttered), the location-based mobile startup serves a simple purpose: It lets an individual share his or her location with a group of friends.

Foursquare ventures beyond utility, however: It’s a virtual game in which participants earn badges for checking in at various locations; those that check in most become a venue’s “mayor.” By all accounts, this mechanism is as addictive as Twitter, Facebook or checking your e-mail on a BlackBerry.

Originally launched as an iPhone application and seeded by the young early-adopter set in cities such as New York and San Francisco, the site’s founders were able to leap from a ready-made springboard: Twitter.

With users’ “check-ins” being posted to the messaging service, Foursquare was able to gain a foothold in much the same way YouTube built its lead from videos embedded in MySpace pages.

The parallels with Twitter are numerous. As technology early adopter and popular blogger Robert Scoble wrote in September: “Go back three years ago. Twitter was being used by the same crowd that is playing with Foursquare today.”

The similarities don’t stop there: Twitter first took hold at Austin’s South By Southwest festival in 2007; Foursquare made its debut at SXSW 2009. Members of both founding teams have previously built successful social startups; both those startups were sold to Google.

The two companies share investors, too: Union Square Ventures is a backer, while Twitter inventor Jack Dorsey made an angel investment in Foursquare. Other notable investors include the founders of Digg and Delicious, and famed angel investor Ron Conway. Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson observed that Foursquare’s first round financing was “among the most competitive early round financings I’ve seen in a long time.”

Foursquare’s power play: Platform for developers, retailers

This week Foursquare debuted the singular piece that launched Twitter into the stratosphere: an API. This application programming interface allows third-party developers to build anything they desire on top of Foursquare’s location-based social network.

It’s been shown time and again that once these ecosystems gain momentum, potential competitors face an arduous task. From Flickr to Google Maps to Twitter and beyond, it’s clear that early critical mass — having enough users and applications to make a service invaluable — sets the stage for a landslide victory.

Google’s Android, entering the mobile platform wars long after the iPhone App Store had served up a veritable smorgasbord of apps to its army of users, is evidence of the chicken-and-egg problem that arises for new competitors: What’s the incentive for users and developers to switch to a smaller, less visible platform once a leader has emerged?

With the launch of its API, Foursquare looks set to capitalize on this “rich get richer” phenomenon before others can make a play. Foursquare is doing more than wooing users and developers, however: It’s also courting local bars and restaurants.

“Foursquare for Businesses” is a platform for retailers wishing to offer special deals to Foursquare users: Check in to frozen desert maker Tasti D-Lite at two venues in New York, for instance, and you’re eligible for a discount.

Competitors abound

Nonetheless, multiple players are vying for victory in the location-based services market. Between Gowalla, Loopt, Brightkite and Google’s Latitude, Foursquare will by no means have an easy ride. While Gowalla debuted an early version at SXSW 2009 alongside Foursquare, both Loopt and Brightkite have a head start.

All of these services, I’d argue, lack the highly addictive game play that appears to have Foursquare users hooked.

Google is undoubtedly the 800-pound gorilla, but the fastidiously numbers-driven search engine has proven time and again that it cannot grasp social-networking dynamics — from Orkut to Friend Connect (its Facebook Connect competitor) to its failure to turn Google Video into a YouTube competitor.

One company may unwittingly squash Foursquare in its infancy: Twitter itself. The very service that propelled Foursquare to prominence is rapidly building out its location-based features, with a location API that directly challenges Foursquare. Twitter already has the critical mass of users and ecosystem of eager developers. If it executes correctly, the service could leave Foursquare in the dust.

In Foursquare’s favor: Young, fast-growing startups such as Twitter often find their engineering teams overstretched simply trying to achieve scale. Twitter has added less than a dozen new features since launch as preventing frequent downtime has become its greatest challenge.

Meanwhile, the overlap in investors means the Twitter-Foursquare relationship is unlikely to turn sour. Foursquare may network its way to the top in 2010 or find itself lost in an increasingly competitive landscape. Early adopters are betting on the former.

Arkadaşını Google’da buldu

Friend Connect ile benzer ilgi alanlarına sahip insanlar birbirlerini daha kolay bulabilecekler.

It wasn’t long ago that your “community” referred to the neighbors
within a certain radius or the colleagues with whom you worked.
Connecting with these folks to raise support for an issue or
neighborhood block party often posed a challenge. If you were trying
to raise interest for an issue or invite people to an event, outreach
might involve phone calls or canvassing the area and distributing
flyers. Once you got the word out you would have to sit and wait to
see if the people you’d reached out to had the same interests and
concerns you had. Ultimately, you never knew if your neighbors truly
shared anything in common with you — beyond a zip code.

Back then, “community” would happen at the Community Center – the hub
of activity inside a regional area where both adults and children
would gather to connect, visit, play games and even share photos. All
sorts of activities were taking place here and people made the trip to
connect to enjoy life together.

But, in this age of the real-time Web, it’s become easier than ever to
find or build a community with like-minded people who, most often, do
not live within your zip code. As technology evolves, our degrees of
separation have gotten smaller. Social networking has helped us push
past the geographical boundaries, and has helped us to engage based on
common interests. It’s now easier than ever to become an activist and
rally support for something we feel passionate about. And businesses
can create awareness, solve problems, and generate great customer
experiences with the click of a mouse.

But building relationships online is still not that easy. It requires
clear channels of communication and common interests. At Cliqset,
we’re working hard to foster community regardless of zip code and make
it simple for you to develop your own network, and interact with
others, just as if you were meeting them at the local coffee shop or
community center.

Inside Cliqset, once you discover something that interests you, it’s
very easy to start a conversation around it just as if you were
meeting up with that person in real life. We’ve made it easier for you
to share your life online by allowing you to share more than your
status updates or interesting links – you can engage more deeply and
share what you are doing on other networks and talk about that in
real-time on Cliqset.

At Cliqset, we encourage you to start real-time, dynamic conversations
about the things that interest you most, and watch as others join in.
We want you to share and discuss your lives, thoughts,
accomplishments, reviews, pictures….you name it. Looking to solve a
problem? Seek out experts and engage them in discussion in an intimate
forum. In essence, we all are content producers and we want feedback
and to build discussions around our content. Our community opens up an
entirely new universe of people and activities for you to discover,
share and even discuss in real-time.

What are you waiting for? Come join us as we build the new online
“zipcode.” Our weekly conversations are a great way to start
and see what’s possible with creating community in real-time. We hope
to see you next week!

In case you haven’t yet heard the news, Cliqset has officially premiered its public beta!

We think this release takes a giant step forward in making the social media experience more engaging. And we believe there’s something for everyone – users, developers and the open Web community.

For a quick overview of what’s new, see our private beta blog post which steps through some of the newest features. These are just a few of the features that we feel enhance the user experience and the best part…all activities on Cliqset happen in real-time, making the experience similar to how your conversations unfold in real life. But here’s a quick overview of some of our favorites:

- Update your status using Google talk (just add Cliqset to your contacts)
- Email your status updates, photos, and links while you’re on the go
- Integration with nearly 70 other social networks and services that enable you to share your content whereever you’d like
- Our new Cliqset Air app allows you to customize your activity streams in the way you want to view them
- Control who views and comments on your activities via Cliqset Permissions

If you are a Boxee subscriber, have fun with Cliqset’s latest app, which brings real-time conversation to your entertainment experience. Discuss, critique, and even hypothesize endings with other Boxee viewers while you watch your favorite TV shows and movies. Here’s more on that from the Boxee blog: Cliqset brings real-time conversation to Boxee.

And we are continuing to foster decentralization of the web and our commitment to making Cliqset a place of innovation and openness. For developers, we now provide full access to our real-time commenting and streaming APIs, making it easier to write real-time apps. And, if you are a Boxee developer, you should also check out our development library as we’re making available our real-time APIs for writing Boxee apps.

But, keep in mind that this latest beta is just the beginning and we won’t be resting on our laurels. As always, Cliqset continues to work hard to make our online community more and more irresistible. Drop us a line if you like what you see, or if you have ideas on how we can build the best real-time community on the Web. We’re here and ready to engage: http://cliqset.com/user/cliqset .

It’s a big day for Cliqset and the social web! Today, we opened up the new beta of our online community to a limited group of people to get feedback.

As the nature of conversations on the Web has been dramatically changing to mirror those in real life – centered around topics, location and audience – Cliqset is now all about your conversations, however they unfold.

So, what’s new in Cliqset beta 3? Frankly, a lot. Over the last few months, we’ve completely redesigned our website and have created a real-time community that makes it’s easier for users to stay engaged and follow the discussions that they find most interesting.

In our private beta, real-time conversations and activity streams are a focal point in the latest release. Users now have options for communicating and sharing online activities (like photos, location aware updates, bookmarks) with their friends and online communities, while also being able to track and update all of the third-party social services you’re on from one centralized hub.

Here’s what’s now possible on Cliqset:

• Quickly engage and discuss. Discussions and commenting are now all in real-time – unique from most social networks and services currently on the web – giving users a better way way to communicate and stay engaged in the discussion as it unfolds.

• You can easily pull in your content from almost 70 social networks and services. We now support Cliqset integrations with the most popular third-party services so you can easily pull your content into Cliqset (photos, status updates, videos, blog posts, etc.) from other social networks.

• We now have easier ways to share your content with other social networks and services, including Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Identi.ca, Linkedin and FriendFeed. Users can update their status, and share photos, bookmarks, reviews on Cliqset and push them out to wherever they choose.

• And you can now share content that you discover on Cliqset with other social services you’ve enabled.

• Easily discover content and people by staying on top of specific topics with Cliqset’s granular activity stream filters. Users can select which types of updates they’d like to see in their activity stream including text, photo, comment, or blog post.

• Updates that include photo files or location details now show a thumbnail so that users can easily see the content without having to explore further and with filtering capabilities, find others who are discussing the same topics and activities.

• Greater control over how people can see and interact with information that you share.

Come join Cliqset. To be a part of our private beta, sign up and start connecting and conversing in real-time

On the heels of their local Ignite meetup, the Atlanta tech scene is gearing up for yet another cool event. On September 25, Jacksonville-based Cliqset is heading up to visit our techie neighbors in Georgia and participate in New Media Atlanta. We’re especially excited to sponsor the event because building a community is very important here at Cliqset and NMATL is helping to drive and support the tech and marketing network in the Southeast. Not to mention, we’re looking forward to that famous Georgia pie and Southern hospitality!

Another draw for the event is that it highlights the larger discussion around technology and social media and how that enables deeper more engaged real-time connections. We know businesses today are having a lot of conversations on and around the Web and we’re looking forward to hearing Chris Brogan, who is keynoting the event, lend his expertise in new media and emerging social technology to help businesses better understand the newest Web trends. We’re sure to get an earful on topics like how real-time search and social applications can facilitate greater customer engagement – particularly significant to us since our main focus has always been supporting easy and engaging conversations.

The schedule is packed with great sessions, so drop us a line and let us know if we’ll see you at the event (or after party). Or if you have anything you want us to ask Chris – we definitely are psyched to pick his brain.

I found something interesting. Google Friend Connect allows you to add some basic social networking features to any site that you can access the HTML code of. It also works with Blogger, since Google owns that. The most convenient thing about is that people can log into it on your site with accounts they already have from Google, Yahoo, AIM, and OpenID.

Yes, I know I’m breaking the “post once a week on Saturday rule” that I just made, but maybe we’ll change that to “at least once a week on Saturday.”

Just how big a threat is the real-time web to Google (s goog)? As Om has pointed out, real-time content marks a still-amorphous but important new phase of evolution in the web, allowing for the instantaneous discovery of newly added information. And Twitter and Facebook are emerging as an alternative to the traditional engine, which presents a big challenge to Google’s core business. As Larry Page admitted this week, the company finally gets that.

It’s easy to imagine Google falling further behind in the real-time content game. The company’s slow entry puts it in the position Yahoo has held for years in search: behind the leader, always playing catch-up instead of spending creative energy on new advances. Google has struggled with social content, producing mixed results. Orkut, for example, was a hit in Brazil, but not in other major markets; initiatives like Friend Connect have shown little traction. It’s had better success as a search partner, as with its MySpace deal.

Google’s search engine has thrived because PageRank uses democratic algorithms that tracked page links. By contrast, real-time discovery engines like Twitter and Facebok use a more dynamic kind of democracy, linking to content that users finds worthwhile. As a result, content on the web is splitting into two basic models, and understanding this distinction makes clear why Google’s centralized role is being threatened.

Simply put, it’s the difference between discovery and search, between the “Now Web” and the “Then Web.” Here’s a more specific analogy: In college, most of us spent a lot of time in the library but also in a social hub like the campus coffee shop. One was a place for digging up information, the other a more dynamic, conversational setting, where ideas were casually exchanged. Google has been the web’s library: archival, organized and oriented around research. Twitter and Facebook, on the other hand, are coffee shops: instantaneous, conversational and oriented around discovery.

I doubt Google will ever make a good coffee shop. But I also don’t see real-time content shutting down its library. Instead, it’s breaking open a new arena of the web over which Google has little control. That makes Google more of a specialized player, but still relevant.

Of course, Google is going to try to dominate this new terrain, just as it does in search. To that end, it essentially has three immediate options: It can buy Twitter or Facebook. It can create a competitor to them on its own. Or it can partner with them – maybe indexing their content into its search and even buying a small investment stake to deter similar deals with Yahoo (s yhoo) and Microsoft (s msft).

A buyout is unlikely: Twitter has said it’s not for sale and Facebooks seems more interested at raising money to remain independent. Google’s efforts to replicate their success on its own, meanwhile, have disappointed. So it’s more likely to forge partnerships, giving it a place at the table but not the lead spot.

Such an ancillary role won’t satisfy Google for very long. Sharing more and more of the pie with others can’t really be much of an option at the Googleplex. In that case, Google has one last, longer-term option – hitting the upstarts where they are weak. For Twitter, that means its lack of an efficient filter. Google built a great filter for the millions of URLs scattered on the web. Its engineers will be working to do the same for real-time content with the hope that Google can maintain its role as gatekeeper to the web.

But whether or not Google succeeds, its presence in real-time search would push Twitter and Facebook to innovate that much faster, thus accelerating the web’s evolution even more.

Professional writers typically have very busy schedules along with multiple assignments they have to juggle. With Google’s innovative applications and tools, writers can manage their demanding tasks more efficiently and remain up to date with the latest information. 

1.)   Blogger: You can refer potential clients to your Blogger blog to give them a general idea of the type of writing you do. Clients can then track your writing progress by referring back to your blog for project updates, ideas, and various other materials. You can also use your blog to post an up-to-date resume. This is especially helpful for writers who are currently looking for work.

2.)   Calendar: Google’s web-based calendar supports collaboration and document-sharing. For writers on the road, you might want to look into Google Sync for Blackberry. This app allows you to sync your Google web-based calendar and your Blackberry calendar. You can organize your schedule, share events with friends, and keep track of life’s important events—all in one place.

3.)   Google Chrome: I personally am a big fan of Google Chrome. This web browser lets you surf the web in a more efficient and safer manner. You can also log on to your favorite sites even faster than you can on other browsers. Plus, several search suggestions are presented to you as you’re typing the name of a website in the address bar.

4.)   Friend Connect: This app instantly awakens and strengthens the online community that visits your web page by enhancing it with social features. With Google’s Friend Connect, you can encourage visitors to comment on your writings and become more engaged with your site.  

5.)    Finance: Google’s Finance app serves writers in many different ways. It provides a wide range of information about mutual funds, stocks, and both private and public companies. Overall, it’s a great economic and political indicator that offers inspiration and work as a fact-checker. Google Finance is also a great tool for organizing your own investments.

These Google apps are an excellent way to expand your own business, advertise your writing services, and meet new contacts. More importantly, they’re available to you at no cost and they’ll save you a great deal of time, especially when you’re on the go.

We all know that Google leads the search engine market since a very long time. It’s market share is unmatched and is way beyond other search engine players’ like Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com, etc. However, not many of us know that Google is also in a very strong position in the social media world.  It has various social media tools and applications that are used by millions all over the world today.

Following is a comprehensive list of all the popular social media tools owned by Google:

Picasa:

Picasa is a software download from Google that helps you organize, edit, and share your photos with people across the globe. It’s free, and easy to use.

Orkut:

Orkut is an online community, a social network used especially in Brazil and India. Though the initial target market of Orkut was US, it failed to dominate MySpace and Facebook, eventually becoming immensely popular in Brazil and India alone.

Blogger:

Blogger is a free blog publishing tool that allows you to share your thoughts with the world easily. The service was actually created by Pyra Labs, and later acquired by Google in 2003. The main advantage of using Blogger is that you get the opportunity to earn money through AdSense, a contextual advertising platform managed by Google.

YouTube:

YouTube is a leading video-sharing site that allows users upload and share videos with others. It was acquired by Google in 2006 for a whopping US $1.65 billion, and acts as a crucial strategic business unit for Google today.

Jaiku:

To compete with Twitter and other micro-blogging sites, Google bought Jaiku in 2007 from Jaiku Ltd. The site also provides an opportunity for users to connect with their friends and enjoy lifestreaming features, like Twitter.

FeedBurner:

FeedBurner is a news feed management service that allows Weblog owners, podcasters and other Web-based content publishers the ability to manage their RSS feeds and track their subscribers’ usage.

iGoogle:

iGoogle is a useful social media tool that allows you to customize your Google homepage and add news, photos, and various stuff from across the Web to it.

Friend Connect:

Google Friend Connect allows you to connect with your friends on different sites. Friend Connect users can interact with others by inviting them from other social networks and contact lists to join their site or blog.

OpenSocial:

OpenSocial has a common API (Application Programming Interfaces) for social applications across several sites. It was developed by Google in accordance with MySpace and several other social networking sites.

Google Video:

Google Video is a similar service like YouTube, but not in terms of popularity. Users can upload videos for free and share it with others.

Welcome to my Blog…

A unique journey to the creative side of me. Sit back, relax and enjoy reading.

By trade I am in Finance, Corporate Leasing at the present time. My passion however lies within the IT Infrastructure Environment. My specialty lies within Social Media, bridging the gap between the world and the many Social Marketing tools available on the Internet today.

Want to know about Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Stumble Upon, HubPages, LinkedIn, Friendfeed and most important Google Friend Connect…I’m the one you need to talk to.

We are fast approaching the final Wave of Social Traffic Inc.  This has provided individuals the unique opportunity to connect with experts from around the world. Our vast approach to Social Marketing has become renown. Take a moment to watch our video below, information you will not want to miss.

What I Am About…

I am also a graphic designer;  everything from conceptual corporate design to small business logos, brochures, business cards, flyers, presentations.  Here are just a few of the designs I’ve created.

The next time you’re looking to boost your marketing presence, or creative dynamic concepts for your appearance remember I am the one to be looking for.  To follow me, click on one of the Links located on the right. Any one of them will connect you directly to me…

Therese-Leigh

Google Friend Connect Website

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google Raises The Social Bar With New Friend Connect Feature (techcrunch.com)
• Are you using Google Friend Connect? (activerain.com)

With Facebook dominating the social networking industry and spreading like wild-fire across various boundaries, MySpace has decided to tie up with search major Google and spread out its roots as well. Though being the number one player in the US, MySpace is well overtaken by rival Facebook when it comes to the global presence.

The strategy adopted by MySpace in its endeavor to strengthen the network is to make its login system and MySpaceID accordant with other Web sites willing to embrace it.

Functioning on a similar offering made by Google, MySpace is cashing on attracting more and more sites through this initiative. It believes that small-sized portals as well as blogs which have limited technical support would not mind using Google’s system ‘Friend Connect’.

MySpace had been eager to enrich its over 127 million global users’ experience of hanging out online with their social circles even while being at other Web destinations – a 7-month old effort that seems to have finally paid off with the collaboration.

This is not the first time the two giants have teamed up. About a year ago, Google and MySpace had come together to promote ‘OpenSocial’ and challenge Facebook’s warehouse of Internet-based software programs. OpenSocial includes common application programming interfaces (APIs) for online-based social applications across multiple Web sites, where developers can generate applications which access a social network’s friends and update feeds.

Un servicio orientado a desarrolladores que quieran incorporar a sus páginas web funciones sociales sin apenas esfuerzo.

Google ha liberado para uso general un servicio llamado Friend Connect, que si bien se encuentra en fase Beta, ya se puede utilizar en un sitio web para incorporar funcionalidades como las de las redes sociales prácticamente a golpe de ratón.

Friend Connect sirve para que las personas puedan dejar huella de su paso por tu sitio web, a través de distintos gadgets realizados por Google y por la comunidad de desarrolladores de redes sociales.

Con los módulos que puedes incorporar en tu página, Friend Connect te permitirá que tus usuarios puedan autenticarse en tu página usando su cuenta de Google, Yahoo, AIM u OpenID. Una vez autenticado, el usuario será capaz de interactuar con tu página y con otros visitantes que tengas, realizando amigos, compartiendo información, enviando comentarios, o realizando un poquito de ocio con juegos, etc. Además, a medida que se vayan incorporando nuevos componentes podrás insertarlos muy fácilmente en tu página web.

Lo mejor de todo es que Google Friend Connect no necesita conocimientos de programación, algo que resultará ideal para que el servicio sea utilizado por un rango mayor de webs, ya que resultará ideal para las personas que no tienen tiempo de programar estas funcionalidades por si solos o no sabrían cómo hacerlo.

desarrolloweb.com

Google have added Twitter to the list of Networks usable with Friend Connect. This strikes me as a pretty good move.

When you join a Friend Connected site, you can choose to use your Twitter profile, discover people you follow on Twitter who are also members of the site, and quickly tweet that you have found a cool website.

If you’ve already “joined” a site, you can switch to your Twitter sign-in via the Change Profile link in Settings on the Friend Connect widget.

Some day last week I woke up feeling instantly distressed, wondering, for no apparent reason, what exactly had happened to Google Friend Connect.  Two days later that, I found an email in my inbox saying that I had been white-listed as a tester for the service, my mind was then blown in the advent of synchronicity, and I’m still sort of scratching my head.  More importantly however, I got to thinking about what the big picture of this sort of technology would be, seeing as Facebook recently launched Facebook Connect, and MySpace is working on MySpaceID, which I can only hope will let tweens implement flashing gif backgrounds on any website they choose.

On the heels of Anthony’s recent post regarding privacy concerns in social media, the subsequent step of content aggregation beyond services like ping.fm, FriendFeed, and Power.com is to take something you already have and use and to embed it in everything else you do on-line.  Instead of adding layers to your already triple-decked social media sandwich, why not brown-bag it and take your identity with you wherever you go?

What Google, Facebook, and Myspace aim to do with their new services is to nurture the idea of having your circle of friends with you during every step of your on-line life.  Instead of logging on to each website separately, you would use one unified ID for everything (much like OpenID) and have all of your activity and sharing on these websites linked back to a main profile (not so much like OpenID).  The best way I can think to describe this is to imagine that every website you went to had a FriendFeed widget built in, providing universal support for the entire internet.  No more aggregation, no more linking your Flickr to your Tumblr via RSS so you can send things from your phone to have them posted on your Twitter.  You send it to one profile, and all of your friends see it.  Right?  Right.  Its still cloudy for me, too.

The utility of such a thing could be great and fantastic, but at the same time not only does it revoke a large percentage of your online privacy, but as a result of that, you are suddenly held directly accountable for everything you do on-line.  While Google and Facebook are suddenly presented with daily records of your day-to-day life, and profit immensely from the potential ad-value of such information, you also can no longer enjoy the face-less anonymity that sitting behind a computer once gave us.  Consider how many different websites you’ve signed up to, and that maybe you didn’t use the same username at each one.  On one part of the internet, you could be that guy that everyone hates, starting flamewars left and right, meanwhile over at CuteOverload you’re having the time of your life discussing your deep heartfelt love for all things small and furry.

With a connection between these profiles (ie AngryDude203 and ILikePuppies15 are linked to google.com/SteveJ) suddenly your online life begins to feel a whole lot more like real life.  In the same way that everyone in your home town sees your face and remembers that dumb skit you did in the 8th grade, escape from who you were in the past becomes that much harder.

Are we ready for these corporations to know everything we do?  More importantly, are we ready for the people we know personally to know everything we do?  Is this the future in social networking, and will the success of one company or another be the death-knell for independant websites? Share your comments, and in the meantime I’ll be under a few feet of concrete constructing my tin-helmet.

By: Vincent Maher

Friend Connect (www.google.com/friendconnect) comes in the form of a sidebar for websites and blogs that has a powerful viral invitation tool for getting people to join and become part of a community that centres around the content of the site. Website creators and bloggers can invite new community members from a list of Gmail contacts or share the site inside other social networks such as Facebook, MySpace etc.

The genius of it is its simplicity – much like the paradigm-shift brought about by Google’s Adsense – Friend Connect explodes the notion of social networking completely and enables any website to be a component of a global social network.

How does it work? Website creators log in to FriendConnect using their Gmail accounts, download some code and put it on the site. Once this is done, there are several gadgets that can be embedded into the site to enhance the community aspect once people have joined your network:

• a wall gadget so people can post videos, comments and other bits of social lint onto your site;
• a review gadget so people can discuss how cool or lame you are depending on their mood, and,
• most importantly, an OpenSocial gadget that allows you to embed OpenSocial applications inside your site.

The scale of it is grand, like the Israelites toppling the walls of Jericho with their trumpets, or the rumble of elephants and infantry descending upon the Rhône.

Forget the social network as a walled garden, forget social networks as destination sites – FriendConnect turns the whole web into a social network.

Jeff Palumbo—

The great social network debate is unified profiles -vs- singular social networks. Googles friendconnect is a giant leap for the unified profile. Under the unified profile we will see profiles connected to one another in a more conventional life fashion with out or with little reprensentation of where the profile was created. Under the social network side we have a community for bikers, schools, charities, etc. as one community that you and your profile are a part of. This is a great method for many community types such as an independent private school, a church or a charity where belonging to that community means more than belonging to a website like bed bath and beyond.

This relates to many businesses. How can I leverage my social initivitave with in this great debate. If your company is seeking the relestate of the profile you need to be an application or widget. If you company seeks the verticle community you need your own social network. Which is better? They both serve their purpose and hold value to the respective business that uses them. The unified profile allows the profile owner to dictate the content on their profile. The community allows an enclosed colaboration between people under a percieved community.

Now the websites visitors may not have to do the nagging task of filling up the form, uploading photograph and memorizing username etc. Website visitors can now sign in to different websites using their existing identity on Face book (worlds largest social media network).

Now the Face book ‘Connect button’ which is appearing on many sites bring barrier free flow of new and more volumes of website visitors who want to interact with the sites but don’t want painful registrations .The website accessed is granted information about its the visitor, available in Facebook such as and taste & preference ,birthday, hobbies,likes and dislikes etc. Such valuable information means ‘content ‘and’ advertisements’ can be  targeted accordingly.

Similar effort has also been done at Google as it released “Google “friend connect “  which is competing with Face book’s Connect’ There are some key differences between Google’s friends connect and Face book’s connect. Google lets User sign in ‘Websites’ with Yahoo, MSN and AOL also. Google’s’ friends connect’ is easier as it requires adding few codes on the site  while Face book ‘connect’ is complicated process. But Face book has more advantages in terms of partnering with third party services. It is working with mega social media networking and book marking sites like Digg,Stumble Upon, Loop, Delicious etc. Google social media networking partners are small and run by individuals.

Although Face Book has taken early lead but only time will tell who among the behemoth Internet giants will win the battle of social media network  .However websites owners will remember the Face book for revolutionizing social media technology  which enables them drive more traffic of Site visitors and sell wares better. Site visitors will also be relived from cumbersome and time consuming task of submitting information like email address, username and memorizing passwords etc.

Google heeft sinds gisteren zijn Google reader vernieuwd en laat Google Friend Connect los op zijn gebruikers.

Wat heeft Google nu weer in zijn mars? Dat is de vraag die ik mij stelde bij de aankondiging van dit nieuwe platform. Maar eerst en vooral, wat is Google Friend connect eigenlijk?

Google Friend Connect geeft de mogelijkheid aan webmasters om sociale informatie toe te voegen aan hun website in de vorm van functies/gadgets door snel wat html-code te kopiëren. En die gadgets die gebruiken dan weer de API’s van Facebook, Linked.in en verzekeren daardoor een informatiestroom van op allerlei websites.

Hiermee heeft Google weeral een goeie tool op de markt gezet waarmee ze zich op vlak van datamining en advertising nog meer kunnen focussen. En wat is het grote voordeel voor de gebruiker? Bij Google-sites heb je maar één login nodig voor alle verschillende diensten. Ze ondersteunen nu zelfs open-id!

Ik stel voor dat je het voor jezelf eens bekijkt op deze website

Wie het eens wil proberen kan hier inloggen met zijn gmail account.
Let wel op! Je moet 2 html-files toevoegen & uploaden naar je site

___

Indien je er een andere mening op nahoudt dan de mijne mag je gerust reageren en jouw mening delen. Integendeel, ik heb niet liever. Eventuele suggesties zijn ook altijd welkom! Keep on reading!