SisterSledgeSays

So, I imagine Google’s Friend Connect stuff has been around awhile and I’m a Johnny-Come-Lately, but I’m betting I’m not alone…there are likely a lot of “Johnny’s” out there.

If you have a website that would benefit from social media interractions and don’t have the capability or desire to build/integrate a forum or blog, Friend Connect could be a perfect resolution to your needs. There are a variety of modules/gadgets/plugins you can choose from and more are being added by creative programmers all the time.

The gadget I was most interested to try out was the “Playlist Gadget”

You’ll see the Playlist gadget in the sidebar of this blog. With this gadget made by iLike, I can share some of my favorite music with you and besides just listening, you can add songs to the player that you’d like to share here too…so nifty! Today the songs I’ve selected are on the theme of “Pink” but I can change them any time to add/remove/edit what’s displayed. I’ve noticed that some songs only play a snippiet…haven’t figured out yet if there’s a way to know which - I’d like to only play full length songs.

One of the most popular gadgets is called a “Member’s Gadget”

The Members gadget allows visitors to:

• join your site
• sign in and out
• see pictures of other site members
• see pictures of their friends
• explore other members’ profiles
• invite other people to join your site

Many sites put this gadget on their home page. You can choose the size and colors of this gadget, to make it conform to your site.

The “Wall Gadget”

The Wall Gadget seems to have the most social engagement - it allows viewers to post comments, or links to videos on your site. I’d recommend the Wall gadget be placed within the theme of your site so that it will display on every page like I’ve done here with the Playlist gadget.

Check out Google’s Friend Connect if you’re interested - it’s free and easy to add social functionality to your site!

Here’s an example of a blog site implementing many of the Friend Connect gadgets: http://blog.go2web20.net/

Do you use Friend Connect gadgets?

Comment here to share what’s working well for you