Farewell, my Friend…my Google Friend Connect

Over the past several years the Google Friend Connect widget has become a staple of many blogs’ right-hand column. Now the company has announced that it will be shuttering Google Friend Connect service for blogs other than those on its Blogger platform.

Here’s how they describe it in their own words, on the Google blog.

In its place, Google is pushing its Google+ service and the badge for staying connected. I haven’t used my Google+ account much, so I’ll need to explore it further, but for those bloggers who’ve amassed a large Friend Connect following on their WordPress or Typepad blogs, this could be bad news.

It could mean spending time reproducing the efforts they’d previously put into Friend Connect with Google+. It might mean losing followers.

Of course, that’s the danger with many free services – and even with some you pay for – you can spend time investing in learning how to use them and integrating them into your blog only to discover they are going away or are not supported technically.

We asked tech-savvy blogger Typecast for her opinion (there was a good discussion on her Facebook page about it). She responded:

My view is that GFC was a way for Blogger users to follow other blogs and it was then linked to Google Reader (obviously both owned by Google). I actually think that GFC has some great functionality which very few people knew about.

I’ve already emailed all my subscribers using the GFC newsletter facility and introduced new ways for them to follow me.  I will be removing the widget at the end of February – in line with the winding down of the facility.

G+ has been scaring me BUT I’ve had a play around with it and it’s actually quite a cool platform but it’s not “busy” enough on there at the moment (which is why a lot of people like it). However, I can see how Google are going to filter in some of their services to it.

I’ve put a G+ button on my blog and anything that I give +1 to automatically appears on my G+ stream (like an endorsement). I like that idea. The only think I’m really missing is the Google Reader “recommended” facility as that was my blog roll substitution. I don’t display a blog roll as I believe sharing is endorsement – and if someone posted something I didn’t agree with and it appeared in the sidebar of my blog, it might look like I support their view.  I have found a widget that streams all my G+1 endorsements so that now sits on my blog instead of a blog roll or the Google Reader shared items.

If people are prepared to use Triberr to share blog posts, then they should also be considering having a G+ button on their blog too. Not a lot of blogs have this facility yet.

If you’re using Google Friend Connect on a non-Blogger blog, you have until March before the service ends.

Will the change affect you and your follower numbers, or do you think you’ll just find other ways of connecting with your readers and allowing them ways to follow you?

If you’re a blogger who writes about parenting, fertility, or education, we’d love for you to join our community, BritMums.

About Jennifer Howze

Jennifer Howze is the Creative Director and co-founder of BritMums. She blogs about family travel at Jenography.net, tweets at @JHowze and Instagrams at @JHowze. Previously, she wrote the Alpha Mummy blog at The Times and as a journalist has contributed to The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Wall Street Journal, Travel & Leisure, Budget Travel, CNN.com, Allure, SELF and Premiere, among others. She won The Maggie Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for a health article in Seventeen magazine.

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