Rob Safuto

"Yes it is easy to set up and add to your blog. Asd you say, though, some things are not easy to figure out. hopefully we'll manage to get an idea here :)" - Neville Hobson

"You may be right, Adrian. Think outside the bubble, etc. Ok, but I think some common principles apply here and not social media focused necessarily. In yiur example, Facebook and Twitter would help if some or many of the group who connect with each other use those services. So their presence together in Friend Connect purely facilitates their use of those other networks. At least, I think that's how it works..." - Neville Hobson

"Oh and the "invite" option on the membership box chips away at the value added by services like Add This and Share This." - Rob Safuto

"After a bit of thought on the matter it seems to me that this offering from Google will cause heart palpations amongst the operators of services like those at JS Kit and MyBlogLog. These services allow publishers who have limited interactive functionality on their sites to add social features like members, comments and ratings. Membership, comments and ratings seem to form the backbone of the Google Friend Connect service. In that sense this new offering could very well make future growth prospects much harder for the companies I mentioned above. Most people familiar with blogging know MyBlogLog which was acquired by Yahoo. JS Kit is a much smaller, independent company. http://js-kit.com/" - Rob Safuto

"Good viewpoint, ie, you're not sure yet. Same here." - Neville Hobson

"It does look similar, my thought exactly., But I have a better feeling about it than the other one. Maybe it's because it's Google, not sure." - Neville Hobson

"Thanks, Robert, thoughtful commentary.I agree, this is all about trust. Multiple trust, in fact: each of our individual trust in each other, and in Google as a guardian of our data and provider of something useful. We should expect to 'pay' for that usefulness, which will probably be in allowing Google to do things with our data. You've raised a good point in your last para. Like you, I'm not at all clear on precisely what is the perceived value of the overall service offering from the user viewpoint. Yes, I've read Google's description, and included a quote from it in my post. But I'm still unclear and hoping this experiment may help make it all clear. Well, clearer at least." - Neville Hobson

"Agree, step in the right direction. Or maybe an inevitable direction; whether it's right or not remains to be seen." - Neville Hobson

"It's disruptive, that seems clear. My thought, too, re what it might mean for MyBlogLog and similar services. One thing I really am in the dark about is how do I add other Friend Connect functions (widgets) here - ratings, for instance - that everyone in the community can use. Or is it that anyone can use them, in which case what's the point of the community? Need to investigate a bit on the Friend Connect site!" - Neville Hobson