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?
The social graph is too important to just let one company own. Facebook has done a great job at making it bloody hard to fight on this, but WE should own our data, not friggin Facebook.
I hope that many companies compete and we end up with viable alternatives, especially Open ones that give the power of data to users.
The fun part about Google being Google is that they don’t always do what makes business sense, but they sometimes do what makes the web a better place. It’s best for the web to have competition, and by favoring Twitter over Facebook, hopefully that gives FB just enough competition to keep them in check.
Obviously Facebook, not Twitter, will own identity in the years to come, but as long as we can keep the market share, ohh…. like 65/35, hopefully that will pressure FB to not just sit idle, much like what Google has done with Search (in my opinion).
Honestly, I’m not active at all in FB but I’m very active on Twitter very recently. I don’t know something called Google Friend Connect. I think, Google is taking the MicroSoft route in the history of business.
Your post is helpful and informative.
Facebook has the numbers of social users, but LinkedIn has the business users. Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter are a network I understand and use.
Seems to me like Windows Live is doing a good job getting connections setup (http://profile.live.com/webactivities/). The UX may not be great for the SValley early adopters, but the tech basis of linked identities is a good start.
SeeAlso: identityblog.com 😉
I feel, it would have been better if Google had adopted a strategy similar to Yahoo.
I think it speaks to how Google Friend Connect isn’t adopted by a lot of sites. I think that is why it wasn’t picked up.
I run http://www.buzzbox.com, it’s more of a personalized techmeme. And the story didn’t get picked up that much either for us. I think reporters think that the direction Yahoo takes is more newsworthy.
Anu
This is just getting more and more confusing and unmanageable. How many social accounts do we need to have and how can we possibly keep on top of them all? The sooner an outright market leader emerges the better as far as I am concerned. Twitter/Facebook/Google/LinkedIn, I really don’t mind… I just want to have to maintain one of them while reaping the benefits of them all.
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