Google Friend Connect as you all know is a free social networking site which allows your website visitors to join your blog to build a profile and interact with each other by sharing information via third-party sites. Blogger users who follow blogs using friend connect receive updates straight in their dashboard. This service was introduced on 12th of May 2008 but on November 22, 2011, Google announced that Friend Connect will be retired for all sites by March 1, 2012 and encouraged use of Google+'s pages and Google+ badges instead. This shocked almost everyone because it took web owners great efforts to build Fan following using Friend Connect. Should Blogger users worry as well?
Friend Connect Will Remain on Blogger!
On November 22, 2011, Google's Senior Vice President of Operations Urs Hölzle [a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/more-spring-cleaning-out-of-season.html" target="_blank"]announced[/a] several services whose development will be stopped in 2012. These services include:
- Google Gears
- Google Search Timeline
- Google Wave
- Knol
- Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C)
The official announcement clearly states that Friend connect service will retire only for sites other than Blogger.com
Google Friend Connect—Friend Connect allows webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a few snippets of code. We're retiring the service for all non-Blogger sites on March 1, 2012. We encourage affected sites to create a Google+ page and place a Google+ badge on their site so they can bring their community of followers to Google+ and use new features like Circles and Hangouts to keep in touch.
The statement clearly mentions non-Blogger which means a green signal for BlogSpot users. Therefore you don't need to worry about the hard work you put in building your readership. Friend connect is an excellent tool in bringing valuable traffic to our blog and several others.
Widgets Similar to Friend Connect
Apart from displaying Friend connect widget on your blog you should pay more importance to the following ever expanding social media sites:
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google+
2012 should be the year to [a href="http://www.mybloggertricks.com/2011/12/how-to-force-blog-visitors-to-subscribe.html" target="_blank"]build readership[/a] through social media. You can use the following sharing widgets to multiply your traffic and Fan base.
- [a href="http://www.mybloggertricks.com/2011/06/add-facebook-like-box-at-bottom-of.html" target="_blank"]Facebook Like Box[/a]
- [a href="http://www.mybloggertricks.com/2011/07/add-twitter-fan-box-to-blogger-blogs.html" target="_blank"]Twitter Fan Box[/a]
- [a href="https://developers.google.com/+/plugins/badge/config" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"]Google+ Fan Page Badges[/a]
You may also try adding sharing widgets below post titles and a floating sharing widget to left side of your content. Check the [a href="http://www.mybloggertricks.com/2011/11/25-best-blogger-widgets-released-in.html" target="_blank"]entire Sharing widgets collection here[/a].
Any Questions?
I am sure this will now remove the roamers that are spreading widely in blogosphere about friend connect retirement from Blogger blogs. Keep building fan following from Friend connect and add this widget to your blogs to provide your visitors with several options of subscription. If you have any doubts or questions, please feel free to post your queries. Peace and blessings pals. :)
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