I am not a programmer and simply do not aspire to be one. I consider my expertise to be in other areas, but that does not mean that I do not want to add cool new interactive features to my website that typically require a strong knowledge of web programming. This is why I am so interested in checking out Google’s new Friend Connect.
Created just for people like me, Friend Connect lets Google do the heavy lifting for you. You can now install into your source code cool little mini applications that allow for users to become members on your website, add comments about a page or your website, and to rate your content. It is the beginning of a very neat interactive component that I am sure many will actively embrace. More applications and sharing tools are sure to be created as Friend Connect allows people to add programming-like elements into their static website without programming or database integration.
Friend Connect allows users with a Google account (which Google early on nearly forced on everyone who advertised in AdWords and when Gmail was initially introduced, so many users already have one), Yahoo accounts, and even AIM accounts. You can visit our website today to check out what we’ve done with Friend Connect integration. Just visit our resources section and click any top tip link to see just a bit of how we are using Friend Connect.
Although every page in our website is not using Friend Connect, we see it as a content interaction tool and so on some of our content pages which are really focused on teaching or sharing we want to help others to share our information and leave comments.
Friend Connect is easy to install for users who understand HTML, but not for the person who does not update their own website. You can find out more about Google’s new Friend Connect by visiting the official Friend Connect website.