Keeping track of the relationships of online giants would be much easier if they had a social networking site of their own. If that were the case, Twitter would today be listed as accepting Google’s friend request, while Facebook’s status update would be dejected.

Twitter has announced that it is integrating Google’s Friend Connect service. That’s not a social networking site as such, rather a way for other Web sites to easily host interaction such as feedback forums or product reviews.

Rather than develop their own systems, Web sites can simply add some code to run the Google system; site visitors then participate using their Google log-ins. Of course Google isn’t doing this for benevolent reasons: it gets even more insight into what its users are doing online.

Facebook has its own version of this service, Facebook Connect. At the moment it’s not clear if the Twitter-Google deal will be exclusive (Twitter’s chief exec says it’s not a case of choosing one over the other), but either way its still a blow to Facebook that Google should get the deal first, particularly given that social networking isn’t yet established as ‘Google territory.’ CNN notes that Twitter turned down a buyout offer from Facebook earlier this year.

If you’re wondering that the tie-up actually means for Twitter users, the answer is not much. It simply means that you can use your Twitter log-in details when you visit a Web site with Google Connect, see a people you follow on Twitter who are also using that site, and automatically send a tweet to promote the website.

The hype is that this makes Web site owners more likely to use Google Connect content because people will be more likely to promote their site via Twitter. That sounds a bit of a stretch: if a site’s really worth telling friends about, you’d think most people would be able to make the effort of cutting and pasting the address into a tweet.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 1:27 pm under Google, Social Media, Web2.0.

Read more entries by John Lister.
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