Google Friend Connect and Drupal
jonathanbloom - May 14, 2008 - 14:00
Google just launched their Google Friend Connect program, http://www.google.com/friendconnect/home/intro, and it raises a couple questions. Is there merit to someone developing a module to integrate Google Friend Connect with a Drupal site? Google Friend Connect opens up a new avenue for people to join your site, but would problems arise of using OpenID, Drupal, and Google Friend Connect users on Drupal sites?
Google Friend Connect is an interesting program and one downside is that it creates a walled-garden unlike with Drupal. You are at the whim of Google and can't add/modify user profiles. Does anyone else have thoughts on Google Friend Connect?
Friend Connect
I'd certainly be interested in seeing what might be possible.
interested
I have signed up but will wait to see what it is like, anything that helps members join is a plus, over the last 3 months I have had 50000 page views but only a couple of people had signed up
www.car99.net www.mobbly.com
Doesn't Drupal already allow
Doesn't Drupal already allow you to do most of what Google friends offers? my take is that G friends is meant for existing static sites that wish to add a social networking element.
Waste of time
Basically it's another way for Google to get more people to be hooked into it, contribute content to Google (not your site), and keep all of your users for itself. I would say that this sort of thing should be avoided. As for getting more users, this is not it... Users can only sign up with Google and can only contribute content to Google. As for Drupal adding support for it, it's trivial to do it, but I would seriously recommend rethinking the idea before going through with it as it will at most get people to talk amongst themselves on Google about your site -- I don't see how it would get you more traffic. Read this for more of my thoughts: http://www.samikhan.net/story/2008/05/17/googles-very-own-facebook-beacon
Other side of the coin
Admittedly Google is trying to take the app off the desktop and out of everyone elses' servers and put all of it into their databases and functionality.
Running your own society is critical to mission success in community building.
So there is plenty of argument not to Go Google.
That said, if "it will at most get people to talk amongst themselves on Google about your site", and those people say good things to each other and folks come to your site that would not otherwise come to the site, isn't that a good thing?
Probably the best use of Google Friends would be to get an account for your site and use it to drive conversation about the site, but not actually use the Google Friends tool to siphon off your user base into Google's clutches.
I think letting folks log in with a Open ID is probably a good thing.
In my opinion ...
Agree with Cyberflyer.
In my opinion from experiements, if you are a content provider (i.e. blogger, photo showcase etc) who need to drive high traffic in a short period of time, and you want people to provide comment to your content or other features in opensocial applications, while your main contents are not community contributed (you fully create & maintain your own contents) and willing to outsource membership management to 3rd party, then Google FriendConnect (FC) is your best bet.
Commenting on jimmyg164, I think FC will not give us more member join to our website. It only drive traffic and open website to broader audiences.
I do not see the reason why we need a module to bridge FC to Drupal. I think, we can use custom blocks or nodes to implement FC in any Drupal installation. It is very simple to implement, just within a few minutes you can drive traffic to your site instantly. On the other hand, Drupal has plenty of resources to create similar social functionality as in FC (i.e. Advance Forum, OpenID, User Relationships / Buddylist modules etc), so I don't think I want to implement FC just to mimic user management capabilities.
Lucky I. Ismail
=========
Adandu is Getting Its Own Star!
A different perspective on
A different perspective on the points Jonathan raises:
- A bridge module would be welcome, using Google/Facebook/etc Connect(s) instantly increases and diversifies your Drupal site's community.
- In fact, your site is no longer the walled garden, EC (Etc Connect) lowers the barrier to participation by these users
I would contribute/be a co-sponsor to a well thought out bridge/API module(s) that allow for EC integrations.
So what is the bottomline of
So what is the bottomline of this?
Is a Google Friend Connect module in the offing?
I am planning on using it on a Gaming portal I am developing...
Google Friend Connect Module Now Available
There is a D6 module available now.
http://code.google.com/p/google-friend-connect-plugins/wiki/DrupalPlugin
Great! Thanks a lot for
Great!
Thanks a lot for sharing...
that was fast
Anyhting that makes it easier for visitors has got to be good
Ed Taaffe
Http://www.people-fusion.co.uk
Training and consulting site that specialises in sales, mrketing and cost cutting.
Tried it on drupal D6 (6.x) and have some issues
Hi,
I just tried Friend Connect on a Drupal 6 site and have the following issues:
http://code.google.com/p/google-friend-connect-plugins/wiki/DrupalPlugin
1. I have a multisite directory, and had to add the two google HTML files (canvas.html and rpc_relay.html) to the root directory of my multi-installation to get it to work... I am sure this could be fixed by changing my .htaccess, but if you don't, then you could probably just use friend connect on one of your sites in a multi-site directory. The HTML files should be generated on the fly (in the same way as the Sitemap module does it)
2. After you upload your two files, upload the module, and activate, the module asks for a Site ID... well, the site ID is nowhere to be found. The code google gives you at the end of the process has some keys, but I don't know which on you should use from the code:
google.friendconnect.container.renderMembersGadget({ id: 'div-1234567890123',
site: '01234567890123456789' },
skin);
3. No block is created by the module, the question is, do you go ahead and create your own block and just add the code into a PHP filter?
4. Another question, is what do you do with the comments? Do you have to setup the permissions so that even anonymous posters can add them?
5. What else besides comments are valid interactions?
I think this module has a lot to offer, but needs some work on the documentation. It is excellent that google and its developers are working on it! Thanks
P.S. If anyone is interested this is a test site setup by Google: http://ossamples.com/plugins/drupal/
http://www.faunapolis.org/
I found the Site ID. It is
I found the Site ID. It is site: '01234567890123456789' this from the above comment. It is clearly mentioned here http://code.google.com/p/google-friend-connect-plugins/wiki/InstallFrien...
My problem is that still it not working. Is there any block creation and putting the code in that new block needed?
Can anybody help me?
Regards,
-S-
thanks GOD, at last it
thanks GOD, at last it started working.But now I have another problem. After signing in to google account, if I pressed the "join this site" button it gives me 404 Page not found error. The below is the complete error message:
===========================================================================
404 - Not Found
The page you are trying to access does not exist.
If this error persists, please contact the website webmaster.
If you are the webmaster of this site make sure that:
You have uploaded correctly your files to the public_html directory which is the web-root of your account;
You have not misspelled the URL. Bear in mind that letters are case sensitive and no white spaces are recommended;
In case you have applied SEO - SEF URL rewriting rules, make sure you have re-named the htaccess.txt file to .htaccess. If there is already a non-empty .htaccess file read it and make sure the necessary rules are un-commented.
============================================================================
Anybody can help me, why this error?
Regards,
-S-
I haven't been able to make
I haven't been able to make it work, in my case, it just says "Loading..." in the place where the sign-in button or the comment text box should be.
My guess is that you uploaded your files OK because you got the Site ID. Check with your FTP permissions for my files are 644. Don't know if your problem has something to do with that.
http://www.faunapolis.org/
Thanks for comments. I
Thanks for comments.
I created a custom block and pasted the google code in that block. Before pasting the code in the custom block disable any FCKEditor or TinymCEditor. Active the block in left or right sidebar. Works quite OK. No need of the drupal plugin by google man Mr. Muthu.
Regards,
-S-
Muthu's module is supposed to
Muthu's module is supposed to let "connected friends" to post comments on your site. It still doesn't work for me.
http://www.faunapolis.org/
still waiting
i'm in the same condition, maybe another tutorial for permission
Facebook Auth
Maybe a module could be built that is similar to Facebook Auth (Allows users to sign in using facebook credentials, drupal grabs personal info from facebook and now creates a profile on the drupal site) or Windows Live Authentication (Same thing as Facebook Auth, but with Windows Live)
In this way drupal could import the friends from google friend connect and create a site based account that is identical to the google account.
Does not work properly
When i try login and try to comment its just showing 'Loading...' message. Nothing else.
http://ohmybaby.in/friends/comment/reply/1#comment-form
http://www.ohmybaby.in
Same here
Loading....
www.echoleaf.com | expert Drupal theming
Same here, it says,
Same here, it says, "Loading...".
Hectorplus.com
Hi, I must admit I get no
Hi,
I must admit I get no where with this. I cannot even get to downloading any modules, either that or I am missing something. Think it needs to be made either simpler or explained more clearly.
Nick
----------------------------------
Nick Young
nickbits.co.uk - My Personal Site
drnick.me.uk - My CV
devzen.co.uk - My business
Just want to let everyone
Just want to let everyone know that I'm going to be working with the original module author at Google to help bring this as an official, supported module on drupal.org.
That is nice
Wonderfull!
Thanks Dave.
Regards,
-S-
Dave, That is fantastic news.
Dave,
That is fantastic news. Do let us know when there is an alpha or beta for testing.
Good luck.
Nick
----------------------------------
Nick Young
nickbits.co.uk - My Personal Site
drnick.me.uk - My CV
devzen.co.uk - My business
interesting
subscribing
Subscribing
subsrcibing
Anil Sagar
Official d.org module
I've officially recieved the go-ahead from the folks at Google to start the official Friend Connect module here on drupal.org. You can find it at http://drupal.org/project/friendconnect. A nightly snapshot should be generated sometime within the next 12 hours for testing.
IE issue
Dear Dave - somehow the code from Google doesn't work on IE.. do you know how that could be fixed?
Replicated, IE throws a blank
Replicated, IE throws a blank page. FF just shows "Loading ...".
Hectorplus.com