From the Google Social Web Blog (I have to admit it’s hard for me to see those four words together without busting out a silly grin):
Today, we’re bringing Twitter and Friend Connect even closer together. Now you can join one of over nine million Google Friend Connect sites using your Twitter login. Once signed in, your Twitter profile will be automatically linked and you can tweet your new site membership, share discussions from the comments gadget, and invite your friends via Twitter.
So what to make of this?
The snarky approach might be to rewrite the news this way:
Today, we’re bringing Not Facebook and Friend Connect even closer together. Now you can join one of over nine million Google Friend Connect sites using your Not Facebook Connect login. Once signed in, your Not Facebook profile will be automatically linked and you can Not Update Your Facebook Status with your new site membership, share discussions from the comments gadget, and invite your friends via Not Facebook Connect.
But that would be very snarky. And usually my snarkiness is so damn buried in inference and linked nuance that no one gets it. I’m not trying to infer that Twitter integration isn’t important, it is. But honestly, if Google really wants to get social, why doesn’t it do what Yahoo’s already done, and admit Facebook pretty much owns the social graph? After all, Facebook has already admitted Google owns search. And it’s using Google to leverage its own platform, in many ways. Google might do the same…
It’s interesting that the ouroborosphere seems relatively unmoved by this news – it didn’t make Techmeme, like nearly everything else that Twitter or Google does. Coverage so far has been pretty straightforward.
But I do think this move marks another play in the ongoing chess match between Google and Facebook. What I’d like to know is whether anyone is really using Google Friend Connect in ways that matter? Or is it on its way to becoming for social what Yahoo is to search?