Google Friend Connect - The Last Social Migration?

My brain has been buzzing ever since I read the big Google Friend Connect press release yesterday. Social networks form natural silos or walled gardens, and even FriendFeed may not be able to break them down (despite an AMAZING feature set - I've loving you FriendFeed). This is a big challenge, and Google's Friend Connect has arrived to take it on.

Friend Connect uses the open API access of existing social networks (Facebook, Orkut, Plaxo, hi5) and social standrards (OpenID, OpenSocial,oAuth) to bring social networking to any website. By adding some relatively simple code, your visitors can soon be bonding over their love for what you do - and who doesn't want that? Sure this thing looks a little unfinished (Where is the support for EVERY social network - come on, you're Google - get it done! And the widget better be highly customizable, because the demo didn't exactly look fetching.), but the idea is simple: connect the dots.

I've been really fascinated with all the lifestreaming/social aggregator sites like FriendFeed, Socialthing!, and Profilactic. The ability to have a real-time view of people's lives is powerful. But putting all the rich audience knowledge aside, even FriendFeed is not immune to social network whiplash (the sudden migration of users form one social network to the next). Friend Connect could make network migrations irrelevant, while also giving smaller sites an inexpensive way to leverage broaders social networks. With a strategy like this, we may not have to wait for friends to join us on the next "It Social Network"... they'll already be there.

I can't wait to see where this goes...how about you?

Geek Note:
As I'm writing this, I'm sitting through the presentation at Google Campfire One live from Robert Scoble's Quk account. Not only am I hearing all of this two hours before it will be publicly available, but it's a beautiful example the Twitter > Qik broadcast schema. Just a few clicks and I'm watching live coverage of an invite-only event from the perspective of an industry insider. Several jets flew over the outside gathering, leading to inevitable jokes about Microsoft spy planes...you can't make this stuff up. I mean, this would never have happened one year ago. Is this an exciting time for technology or what?!?

Comments

My Worklog » Blog Archive » Google Friend Connect launched said:

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# May 15, 2008 2:27 AM

Connections said:

Chad Norman puts together his $0.02 on Google Friend Connect and what it might mean for online social

# May 15, 2008 10:17 AM