If you have implemented Google Friend Connect on your blogs or websites, you’d either be glad or get annoyed by the new features that Google rolled out. These new features aim to make Google Friend Connect more social with the hopes of making Google Friend Connect a better social networking platform.First Google Friend Connect now lets you add widget-like questions that will encourage your visitors to interact with each other as well as communicate with you. Visitors will see these questions and answer them the moment they enter your site. The questions could be anything that will elicit valuable information about your site visitors.
The scary part which I think could be the main reason why you might be annoyed of this feature is the fact that all the details you divulge will be reflected on your Friend Connect profile. Google says, this is a way for you and other visitors to learn more about each other – to possibly start a dialogue between Friend Connect members.
To facilitate interaction among your site visitors, Google Friend Connect also now has the facility for sending private messages among Friend Connect users.
All the information that people share on Friend Connect are reusable and exportable to other systems. All the more reason why people will most likely not use Friend Connect.
So, what can you do with the information you collect from your Friend Connect members? Google enumerated three good uses.
- for sending customized newsletters based on the interest of your Friend Connect members
- for creating personalized content gadget that matches your site visitors’ interests
- for enabling AdSense on your Friend Connect profile that matches your site’s content and the interests of your visitors.
