Friend Connect Secretly Goes LIVE!

You can try out Friend Connect right now if you have a Google profile in the widget in the upper right left corner of this blog under the heading "Followers" by clicking 'Follow this Blog' link.

Confirm the settings you want because you're in control of how you get your content. You can join publicly and your picture will show same as it does on the MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog widgets.

Or you can join 'anonymously' and just receive the updates without being seen.

I join publicly and recommend you do the same because you're part of the community and want to be participating in the discussions and being seen by other members.

Next, click one of the avatars of those who have already joined and add the person as a friend and send them an introductory blurb.

I'll be talking about this more in my Facebook research. The process of adding friends here and making true connections is the same as it is on FB. Stay Tuned (or better 'Follow This Blog' so you're guaranteed to be in the loop and getting all the updates!)

The next screen you will see is their Google profile, links to their social networks and their Google Reader shared items. This is Google's social bookmarking application.

NOTE: All these links open in a new tab so you will not lose this page.

Here is the lowdown on the rest of the Google Social Network and Bookmarking application.

Here is JohnT's blog post from July 28 when he predicted Google Going Social before I was even talking about it publicly.

Here are two sites you can play with Google Friend Connect on, just one part of the Google Social Network: Googling Social.

Social networks might actually be semi-anti-social

Google Friend Connect for Blogger Users

How to add the Friend Connect widget to Blogger.

For those of you who do not know how to use Google Social, called Googling Social, I have instructions to create a Google profile, add friends to from Gmail and get started with Google Reader which is Google's social bookmarking application.

Currently, the links to get to the pieces of Googling Social are hard to find so the best starting point is someone elses Google profile, so here is mine with a link to my Wickedly Evil Social Marketing Blog where you can find instructions to making friends in Gmail and Google Reader.

Alexander Alaric's Google Profile. Alexander Alaric's Social Marketing Blog

Look in the upper right hand corner of the page, the link is "my profile" and it is just to the right of your gmail address.

Word of warning, the Gmail address that you are logged into will be your public Gmail address in Google Reader and how you make friends thru Gmail. So if you have a private address then don't use it. Use one you're ok being public (despite Google's best efforts some spam bots maybe able to harvest your address and spam you).

You only get one Google profile no matter how many Gmail addresses you have, so choose wisely.

If you have any questions you can email me from my contact page on my site. Also if you want to add me as a friend in Google Reader, send me an email at alexanderalaric1[at]gmail[dot]com.

Obfuscations in the address are used to fool spam bots that harvest addresses so just replace the monikers with the appropriate email characters.