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    • Mon Dec 22, 2008

    Adding Social Features to Your Blog

    As blogging evolves one natural track is making your blog more social, more of a community destination.

    Two big players, Facebook and Google, want to help you do just that.

    Facebook recently announced a new offsite tool called Facebook Connect that allows publishers to give visitors to a blog the ability to sign in using Facebook and then automatically publish their comments on the blog back to Facebook and display Facebook content from their profile to other blog users. The idea is that some of the Facebook features come to life on your blog and stimulate more community and more content.

    The process for adding this feature is still a bit techie and involves stepping through the Facebook application developer process, but it’s not that tough.

    Here are some resources
    Create a Facebook Connect application
    Video from Facebook on how to install (pretty technical)
    Facebook Connect Plug-in directory

    Google’s entry into this space is called Google Friend Connect. In addition to the ability to create a community and add widgets for various types of social interaction, this service allows visitors to use their MySpace, Yahoo, Google or OpenID profiles to sign-in to your blog.

    The installation process is very simple. Sign-up, download and install two files that Google gives you and grab the HTML code to install the widget.

    Some resources
    Google Friend Connect
    Video shows you how to install on Wordpress blog

    There are some good things and some bad things about these initiatives. On one hand they allow more social features and more connection on your site. On the other hand, they can distract and even lead people away from your site.

    And, there is a bit of an annoying battle going on here for competing sign-in platforms. OpenID was suppose to be the non denominational, secure single sign-in platform and while it has picked up steam, features like Facebook Connect that still rely on proprietary, closed door sign-in only tends to undercut the OpenId promise. (FYI: Google Friend Connect initially included Facebook log in as part of the tool, but Facebook demanded that it be removed.)

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    Posted by: John Jantsch on Dec 22, 08 | 7:07 am
    Category: Blogging, Social Media | Tags: , , ,

    Comments
    « Get Deeper Inside the Head of Your Favorite Blogger | Home | Duct Tape Marketing – Kindle edition »
    • After putting our company's name on the waiting list for Friend Connect months ago, we recently received notice that we can install Google Friend Connect on our website at http://TheBillableHour.com. However, we've held off.

      We're concerned about social networking overload. Really, does every website have to be the hub of its own social network?

      We're also concerned about the possibility of suffering from negative social proof (or, as I like to call it, the "I gave a party and nobody came" syndrome). If your site has only a handful of "members," that can be a disincentive for new site visitors.
    • Thanks for the great tip and all the steps and resources to do it.

      I'll try it!

      Clyde Boom
    • John Jantsch
      @Lisa - as you can see I have not implemented either at the moment as I share some your same concerns. To misquote the Cluetrain Manefesto - While markets are conversations, you may not need to join every conversaton.
    • Maranda Gibson
      I agree with Lisa. I've tried to pick and choose the social media that my company is involved with purely because if there are a lot of people screaming everywhere, how will anyone be heard? I think it comes down to knowing your business and knowing your brand. Not everything is going to work, be a good fit, or even catch on the way some things (like Twitter) have.
    • I think all this social stuff is too much. I will stick with Twitter.
    • Great post John, and thanks for including a link to my video.

      I think it is interesting that so many people talk about how difficult it is to set up Facebook Connect compared to Google's Friend Connect. You'd think Facebook would simplify the process.
    • John Jantsch
      @Don - yes, you should see the video I found on how to add FC from some FB engineers. It was well done, but man it would have scared the heck out of most folks.
    • Interesting and helpful post, keep em coming, thanks =-)
    • Your posts seem to be one step ahead of when I need to know something. This will come in handy for a client meeting tomorrow.
    • If you'd like to just benefit from allowing new visitors to register and login using an existing account from AOL, Google, Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo or any OpenID account, check out RPX (http://rpxnow.com). You can see it in action at http://www.interscope.com or http://www.uservoice.com and a summary of the data you'll be able to get from the various providers at http://blog.janrain.com/2008/12/rpx-addresses-u...
    • It is good that such social networks are moving towards the blogosphere. But, as you rightly said in the last part of your post, they sometimes tend to distract readers and take them away from your blog. So I somehow find Blog and Social Networks are better when alone and not together.
    • Really interested in both applications. Friend connect the samples looks like a really cool platform and I like the Facebook applications policy on the no follow atribute. They are removing the nofollow attribute from link because they are assumed to be from a trusted source.
    • The rapidly evolving social aspect of the internet is of great interest to me, thank you for the post. It is rather funny how snooty facebook is, trying to set themselves apart from everybody else. They do have an awesome audience though, so it definitely is worth it for one to pursue that route.
    • Installing Facebook Connect on my site was an absolute breeze.
    • deee
      deneme
    • merhaba
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