This guide is intended to help you through the maze of joining up, setting up and working with Friend Connect.
Setting up and administering Friend Connect is done from the main Friend Connect Page You can also find Friend Connect listed on your Google Account Settings page. Installation requires you to add scripts to your site. The setup page only gives instructions for self hosted blogs but I have listed methods of installion on other platforms below.
Friend Connect Settings
Once you have set up a Friends Connect account your blog name will appear in the left sidebar of the Friend Connect page (if you are logged in). Clicking on the blog name will take you to the settings page. From here you can manage the various features available:
You are provided with code to add various widgets (gadgets) to your blogs sidebar – or anywhere else you would like to put them. The gadgets you see in my right sidebar here are the Member’s Gadget and the Sign In gadget, which does not have the member icons. You can also add a variety of social Gadgets (there are some working examples at the bottom of this page), for example:
- Wall Gadget – allows readers to post comments, or links to videos.
- Review/Rate gadgets – allows readers to rate a page, or a section of a page – you can add separate gadgets for each item on your page that you want readers to review.
- Playlist gadget – created by ilike.com allows you and, if you allow it, your logged in readers to add music from ilike.com to a "social playlist".
- Custom Gadget – for adding widgets created by others. These are very simple to set up – the gadget creator provides you with a URL to add to the Custom Gadget set up and the code is then generated for you to copy and paste.
You can see a selection of these gadgets at the bottom of this page.
Within settings you can also manage the members who have joined your site. However, the only options are to block them or befriend them and to add more administrators to your account. A report function gives a simple graph of membership numbers over time.
To get the most out of the social widget, so that you can be found via your other social networking sites, make sure you have added sites to your Google Profile. In the Profile edit page, some of your links will be automatically found, making them quick to add, others you can add manually. If you are a member of Friendfeed, you can avoid having to add sites manually by adding your Friendfeed link – this will populate the list of sites you can add automatically with sites you have added to your Friendfeed profile.
Interacting with a Friend Connect social widget.
You do not have to have the widget on your own site to be able to interract with a Friend Connect widget. You can sign into and join a site displaying the widget by using a Google, Yahoo, Aim or OpenID account, although using a Google account allows you to take advantage of all the features offered.
This video provided by Friend Connect is useful for learning how to interact with the Gadgets (and the members).
Finding Friend Connect Friends and Joining Sites
How do you find friends and sites to connect with?
- By visiting sites that have the member widget installed. Clicking on an individual’s icon will allow you to befriend them, find a link to their own blog(s) and, if they have set it up in their Google Profile, see which other social networking sites they belong to. If you visit their blogs and the member widget is installed, you can join their blog.
- Join other sites and people will find you.
- Via the Friend Connect Directory
- Google Friend Connect on Twitter
Resources:
- Friend Connect Directory
- Friend Connect Directory Friend Connect Google Group
- Forum on the Friend Connect Directory
- Google Friend Connect on Twitter
Reading
- My own introductory post Why Use Google Friend Connect
- A Friend Connected Web and @Twitter: Welcome to Google Friend Connect – from the official Google Blog
- Techcrunch reports that Soon websites that use Friend Connect will have a new option – add Adsense-like advertising within the Friend Connect and Open Social widgets that they’ve added to their websites. Publishers will get a percentage of the revenue generated from the advertising.
- Get Your Google Profile Organized For Friend Connect on makeuseof.com
- Twitter Joins the Google Friend Connect Fold on Wired.com with instructions on how to add Twitter to your profile.
Installation
Self hosted blogs and sites:
- YouTube video by Google Developers – Adding Google Friend Connect To Sample Website
- Expand2web provides a tutorial on adding Friend Connect by uploading the javascript files to your server – the method you will use if adding it via the Friend Connect setup itself.
- There is also a WordPress Plugin available Google Friend Connect Integration The plugin author is SocialMind of Social Arrow, who is also planning some GFC tutorials
Google Blogger blogspot:
- Google Blogspot users need to use a workround to add the widgets. No doubt there will be a built in element to use for this in time considering both are owned by Google! Details of tutorials to do this can be found on my blogspot blog at Adding Google Friend Connect to blogspot Blogger . I maintain this blog as a reference point for blogspot users and it contains lists of Blogger resources – template sites, blogspot tutorial sites (found via the top menu) and the occasional notification of new features.
