By now, you might have already heard a lot about Google Friend Connect(GFC) (From now on, TechPluto is also a GFC enabled site). In brief, it’s an online service by Google that empowers its implementing website, with most of the social features that any basic social networking website possesses. It requires no technical knowledge to install ‘Google Friend Connect‘ and this truely makes it a Common man’s product.
With a number of widgets available for the website owner to use (such as ‘Member widget’, ‘Comment widget’ and so on), the website administrator is given all the rights to moderate his or her growing community. With ‘Google Friend Connect’ enabled, any website can very well flourish its own targeted community and explore it further.
And with the latest addition from Google called ‘Comments Translation’ feature, there are no more troubles in reading comments written in other languages than English in the ‘Comment Widget’ section of your GFC enabled website or blog.
Google has used machine translation for providing ‘Comment Translation’ but it does its job well in helping users interpret the jist of the comment left in any native language.
More updates from Google include Google Friend Connect Plugins for WordPress( Guide to Install it, Install the Plugin) , Drupal( Guide to Install it, Install the Plugin), PhpBB( Guide to Install it, Install the Plugin).
But the actual benefits of being a ‘Google Friend Connect Enabled’ website aren’t clear to most of the folks till now.
Here are the 7 benefits of being a GFC enabled website, which are enough to convince site owners, to atleast try out the service.
- ‘Google Friend Connect’ helps building a community around your website/blog
- ‘Google Friend Connect’ brings a ‘Social’ touch to your website or blog
- More website members will fetch you more relevant contacts
- If ‘Comment Widget’ is enabled by the site owner, it gives an easier way for people to leave feedback about your website, in multiple languages.
- It gives you all the moderation capabilities within your community.
- ‘Google Friend Connect’ is extremely easy to install and make it LIVE
- It’s quite easy for any user to become your site’s member. With so many options(Gmail,AIM,OpenID,Yahoo) available to join any site, it takes seconds for any interested visitor to become your site’s member.
For many site owners, the above reasons might not appear lucrative enough but for engaging your audiences and giving them a community-like experience, ‘Google Friend Connect’ is possibly the best service one can have.