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Google’s Friend Connect got a new gizmo, or should I say gadget? Technically it isn’t a gadget because its main purpose is to organize the Friend Connect gadgets that a site uses. The Friend Connect social bar is designed to simplify the process of using multiple Google Friend Connect gadgets on your site.
The 36 pixel high bar runs across the top of a site and contains a site wide activity feed, a comments section, and a list of site members. Installation for the social bar is relatively easy with Google providing a video demonstration. Google also provides an example site that showcases the social bar in action.
The social bar was announced on Google’s new Social Web Blog, which has the motto, “News and updates about Google products that are helping to make the web more social”
Helping to make the web more social. Why does Google care about users being social? Didn’t they learn their lesson with orkut? It’s clear that Google should stick to perfecting what they are known for, Search. Or is all this “social stuff” some type of cleaver plot to perfect its search product? Probably, but that is a topic for another post.
What I would like to know is who’s using this social bar so far? Other than the example site Google created, I haven’t seen anyone use it yet. I think it would be a safe assumption to say that most designers aren’t going to find a blue bar running across the top of a site very appealing. So, If you know of any site that is using the social bar, we want to see it, paste a link in the comments below!
