If you had been longing for a social media networking feature within your web site, but were always apprehensive about the inherent costs involved, worry no more. Google has created an exclusive platform for integrating a social media marketing aspect into your website as a free service.

More popularly recognised as Friend Connect, which can be accessed at http://www.google.com/friendconnect, it allows owners to add ‘social’ features to their site. Online users visiting the site that uses Friend Connect services are entitled to view, invite and interact with new members as well as existing friends from other social networks like Facebook, Google Talk, Hi5, Orkut, etc. through secure authorisation APIs.

According to David Glazer, Engineering Director at Google:

Google Friend Connect is about helping the ‘long tail’ of sites become more social. Many web sites are not explicitly social and do not necessarily want and need to be so. They still will benefit from letting their visitors interact with each other.

He further adds that the emergence of new social standards forms the basis of Friend Connect to enable people to get easily connected - anywhere, anytime.