social networking | I Love Photo Blogs

…probably the last person in the world to discover Twitter Search, but I must say this application is amazing. I was never really a big fan of Twitter, since I never understood the culture. However, in my quest to find fresh photography blogs on a daily basis this may just be the answer to my prayers. Not only is Twitter Search extremely fast, but the search plugin migrates to your browser the instant you click “Install the search plugin in your browser”. Can’t speak for all browsers, but it was a snap with Firefox. No restarts, just “Bam”. Ok, I revealed too much about my ineptitude for staying on top of technology…now, back to searching with my new friend…Heck, I might even blow the dust off my own account.

search, twitter, twitter search, blogging, social networking, tech gadgets

Google announced today the preview release of Google Friend Connect, a service to allow website publishers to boost traffic by allowing any site on the web to easily provide social features for it visitors. This is a sure-fire hit for web publishers of all sizes. The Google Friend Connect platform could not have come at a better time. Just as I was about to finalize a forum here at ILovePhotobogs.com, Google puts out this announcement.

The great thing about Friend Connect is it’s ability to allow website owners to social network members to communicate in using this platform, regardless of the specific social network to which they belong. Sort of a standards type of social networking platform. Here’s how Google describes Friend Connect…

…any website owner can add a snippet of code to his or her site and get social features up and running immediately without programming — picking and choosing from built-in functionality like user registration, invitations, members gallery, message posting, and reviews, as well as third-party applications built by the OpenSocial developer community.

Visitors to any site using Google Friend Connect will be able to see, invite, and interact with new friends, or, using secure authorization APIs, with existing friends from social sites on the web, including Facebook, Google Talk, hi5, orkut, Plaxo, and more.