It shouldn't happen to an IT consultant
Spend your time doing business, not IT.
Saturday 27 December 2008, 9:35 PM
If it takes ten minutes why not add blogs and social networking to a site?
Earlier this month Google announced Friend Connect, hosted, very easily added social networking web applets that add blog comment and (at present, basic) social networking facilities to any web site for free.
Totally un-coincidently Facebook launched Facebook Connect at the same time. - Facebook’s service is aimed at developers integrating sites with Facebook, so will in the main appeal to larger or largely web based companies.
For the smaller business with a web site attracting enough users create online discussions, but who are not doing so, Google’s offering is appealing. Within ten minutes I added blogs hosted by Google to a client's site. Marvelous, unless of course your business has other problems causing customers to frequently complain. Sort that out first before inviting public comment.
Because Friend Connect supports OpenID, an open-source identity management system backed by amongst others Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo, those or a Google login can be used by visitors to ‘join’ a site and leave messages.
Very soon I expect more functionality. Developers are encouraged to create more Friend Connect gizmos using Google’s Open Sourced OpenSocial API/. An early example crafted by Google is a user generated ratings and reviews applet. A key feature of social networks, the ability for members of a group (your site) to message each other (as well as OpenID friends) isn’t there yet but, I don’t expect it to take long to arrive.
The upside of OpenID is that without visitors having to register for your site you’ll attract more user interaction, the downside is you don’t get to grab demographic and other marketing data as they register. I expect future Friend Connect gizmos will provide the ability to conduct surveys, though as ever you’ll have to bribe your web users to take part.
Of course it may take ten minutes to get a blog or forum up and running, how much time you spend moderating posts and interacting with customers is another matter, but time spent talking to them is rarely time wasted, though I do admit to very occasionally saying that through gritted teeth.
Totally un-coincidently Facebook launched Facebook Connect at the same time. - Facebook’s service is aimed at developers integrating sites with Facebook, so will in the main appeal to larger or largely web based companies.
For the smaller business with a web site attracting enough users create online discussions, but who are not doing so, Google’s offering is appealing. Within ten minutes I added blogs hosted by Google to a client's site. Marvelous, unless of course your business has other problems causing customers to frequently complain. Sort that out first before inviting public comment.
Because Friend Connect supports OpenID, an open-source identity management system backed by amongst others Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo, those or a Google login can be used by visitors to ‘join’ a site and leave messages.
Very soon I expect more functionality. Developers are encouraged to create more Friend Connect gizmos using Google’s Open Sourced OpenSocial API/. An early example crafted by Google is a user generated ratings and reviews applet. A key feature of social networks, the ability for members of a group (your site) to message each other (as well as OpenID friends) isn’t there yet but, I don’t expect it to take long to arrive.
The upside of OpenID is that without visitors having to register for your site you’ll attract more user interaction, the downside is you don’t get to grab demographic and other marketing data as they register. I expect future Friend Connect gizmos will provide the ability to conduct surveys, though as ever you’ll have to bribe your web users to take part.
Of course it may take ten minutes to get a blog or forum up and running, how much time you spend moderating posts and interacting with customers is another matter, but time spent talking to them is rarely time wasted, though I do admit to very occasionally saying that through gritted teeth.
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