New: Misapplying Google Friend Connect

I put a couple of "Google Friend Connect" gadgets on the site. These are little web gadgets that allow you to register your interest in the site and to leave comments on a wall. (That's "wall" in the sense of "write all", i.e., like a forum or IRC channel for you young whippersnappers who didn't have "wall".) And you're thinking "So what, big deal. I could already leave comments without these 'gadget' thingies." And you're right.

A neat thing about these gadgets, though--you can use them on more than one site and they share their data. E.g., I set up gadgets on a test website. The wall-comments there are the same as those on this site.

So... suppose you have a website on some topic. You can set up these gadgets for your own site. You can then encourage other folks to put your site's gadgets onto their sites. They'll need to install some HTML, and they'll need your permission (You'll need to tweak your Friend Connect settings under Site Settings > Advanced, you'll need to add their site's URL to the list of permitted sites) E.g., if you have a site about puzzly treasure-hunts and if you give me permission, I could post your gadget on my site. You might like that because it helps drive traffic to your site. I might like that because it makes my site part of a bigger community.

But I don't think my site could be the main site for the topic--my site's topic is me. I doubt that other sites want to start showing gadgets for my site. I do not have a personality cult; I am not Kibo.

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Posted 2008-12-08