It’s always fun to hear what Google employees call various projects when they think no one is listening. In 2007 they called the upstart Hulu joint venture Clown Co. as a private joke about the messy start to that unlikely company (I was right there mocking Hulu with them, but later gave them their due when they failed to fail).
Now we’ve confirmed that inside the Googleplex their new social product, Friend Connect, is often referred to as “Friendsense.” Why? Because like Adsense, Google plans to use Friend Connect as a shoehorn to insert advertising onto third party websites.
Friend Connect was first confirmed in May 2008. Earlier this month it opened to all comers.
The product (see the video below) lets websites add social features to their website. Add a few lines of code and you can let users sign in through a variety of social networks. Websites can also add various widgets and applications through Google’s Open Social project.
Soon websites that use Friend Connect will have a new option – add Adsense-like advertising within the Friend Connect and Open Social widgets that they’ve added to their websites. Publishers will get a percentage of the revenue generated from the advertising.
And that’s the big monetization scheme behind Open Social and Friend Connect for Google. And that’s why they call it Friendsense internally. And occasionally let it slip to outsiders.
This post was originally posted by our content partner Techcrunch and is being republished on ShoeMoney.com with permission.
Images provided by ShutterStock
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Creating these widgets and Monetizing your friends or anyone else who uses them sounds like a great idea. Adsense for feeds has been working out.
Sounds like a good a good way to make a little cash.
I don’t have high hopes for this Google product
You and me both – I dont see the point of having something like this on your website
Yeah, I’m not going to get my hopes up about it either.
It looks like google just wants something like myspace or facebook. Because that is what it reminds me of when I was looking at it.
I definitely like this idea – haven’t really used it or learned much about it but soon will start to see how I can apply this to my business.
I’ve never heard of this one.
I have seen this, Nice idea of Google (again) to use Adsense.
Looking for the updates.
It is true that OpenSocial is partly devised as another monetisation option for Google. However Randall Stross (in his book ‘Planet Google’) suggests that the introduction of Open Social is more importantly Googles way of responding to the popularity of Facebook within the United States.
Google is worried because its aim is to organise ALL information, and facebooks membership system directly contradicts this goal. He mentioned something about the walled garden metaphor.
Cheers for a good article.
The social aspect of search is something we’re going to see more and more attention being focused on, I for one am quite curious to see exactly how this all pans out.
They sure have my attention on this one. I need to delve into it today. Thanks for the post.
I didn’t know about this. I’m looking forward to hearing more..
Perhaps AdSense publishers should seriously consider using Google Friend Connect and OpenSocial widgets on their blogs now. Hint! Hint!
i am very interested to see how well this does.Social media marketing has such different nuances and behavioral patterns when it comes to running ads. Will this be straight up adsense or will it have different targeting?
I wonder is users will want to interact with ads in the widget. they are there mostly to engage with other people and content. not ads. its going to need to have super personalized relevance in order to get high engagement.
Not really something new since i know this already from Entrecard forum, this widget is similar as Blog Catalog and MyBlogLog but unfortunately its still Beta. Hope they can release it for the full version soon cause i’m so eagerly to try this!
What do you think will be the main benefit of this that you’re so eager to try?? I still fail to see anything interesting about this
You can create your own little community without using this.
Grouptivity has a plugin called Share+ which already includes monetization within a social bookmarking tool.
Something definitely worth checking out!
I hope it will increase my earning in adsense
That is great, but I will wait to hear more about it.
Agree with you. Need a little more infos about it.
Wow.. This big monetization scheme behind Open Social and Friend Connect is an awesome concept..
I personally don’t see the purpose of wanting to add something like this to your website – I guess time will tell, but at least they are trying to monetize it!!
Is this something like MyBlogLog too?
More adcents for us = admillions for them.
Well put! Adcents indeed!
I can see this doing a lot for static websites that dont use social media or have blogs. It will work to bring those sites alive with some much needed interaction. And of course, getting people to put the widgets on their sites or blog is a nice little viral bonus.
Great idea to get some targeted ads out there. It’s like myspace ads but different..
Using crap community building tools like this will fail on 90% of the sites that use it. And instead of building your own community, this looks like it will simply build Google’s community while you do all the leg work.
Instead of using some cheap service like this (and free is as cheap as it gets) why not spend some time programming or hiring programmers to create a real social structure within your own website to further your community interaction within itself, rather than have your customers and community bleed away by using this crap.
I agree that you’ll just be helping Google out mostly in the end.
If this is true, then I’ll yank it from my blog. When I signed up for Google AdManager, they immediately told me to register for adsense before I could use it. Then the adsense people turned my application down. So if they try to sneak their ads onto my site without paying me, then they are gone.
When they say publisher – they mean the person running the widget? And if the person running the widget isn’t interested in monetization, they’ll collect the commission themselves?
yeh, I see people have started using it…
how it’s different than orkut ?
I see Google putting they foot in every single thing online, what I would like to know is when they coming out with Gbay.com to stabilized eBay.
It’s true and here is an interesting post for someone on a gossip site writing about google searchwiki.. and layered advertising.
http://www.gossipcraze.com/gossip/google-searchwiki
Click on the picture for an interesting google’s secret ad ideas.
Will have to look into his more fully. Have a revamp of a site I am trying to relaunch January 1. This might fit. I like that visitors can join, comment, and forward by signing in with a single interface using major portals like Google, Yahoo, OpenID.
looks like a mybloglog type of a thing, haven’t used it yet but saw it on quite a few blogs so far. It will be interesting to see how this thing monetizes.
This is a great way for Google to jump in on the the social networking side of things and make some cash doing it.
Always trying to find a new way to make some money. I think everyone should read jquindlen’s comment. Are you really building a community for yourself or are you just helping to raise Google’s income? There are many ways to build your community that’s ALL on you.
I have to get time out to try this new tool..
So this new Google thing is to be a better link between pretty much all the major players on the internet, if I’m understanding this right. It sounds cool but in the end what will stop it from being a monoply? Google already tells us where to go with a few other choices, what will happen when it sinks its teeth into yahoo, facebook, and the other top rated internet sites?
To be honest I don’t think this is good at all, there are a lot of other Google beta ideas out there much better than this.
Thats what I love about google. Its always about making money…as it should be.
I’ve tried it and it’s doing nothing for me.
I think you are thinking like sukrat, but I think you should cover the other side of the topic in the post too…
Cool tool! LOL for Adcents
Занимательная и интересная статья у вас. В отличие от большинства других подобных почти нет воды!
Very interesting, would like to take another look at this.
well, I learn too much from this site. Thanks a lot for sharing some essential facts of Google.
Simon Cowell is planning to take the TV hit show “My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” to the U.S. Do they understand anything about gypsy’s? Or will Simon be forced to explain about gypsy’s. It will interesting to find out what the Americans think of it all.