Today I was walking someone through the Google Friend Connect examples. I’m always logged into Google, so I wasn’t aware of the number of authentication steps that are required to actually use GFC. We had to go to the appropriate site, then sign into google. THEN register with the appropriate social network. At the first sample site we hit, the “sign in” link didn’t appear to work. At the next site, we signed in, but the progress icon spun and spun — something was going on behind the scenes. The entire process was quite tedious, and I couldn’t imagine having to do it time and again.
It appears that the general belief of all these social network data portability initiatives is that data can be ported between the platforms. Obviously I’ve done the most research into Google Friend Connect, but from what I’ve seen, this is not the case. The big players all introduced their own solution to the same problem, but none of them (as far as I understand) were recommending a communal platform.
So far? Underwhelmed.
- 1.8 million Victoria's Secret fans on Facebook - July 2nd, 2009
- Why are you on Facebook? - June 30th, 2009
- The Real Implication of Facebook Vanity URLs - June 16th, 2009
- Will Twitter Kill the RSS star? - June 11th, 2009
- Accuracy of Employment Status on Social Networks - June 4th, 2009
