Visit my Google Friend Connect

Business Thursday: I set up a Google Friend Connect community at an associated website, which can be visited here and like to share some experiences. Probably you have already heard about Google Friend Connect and others aggregated social networking services, which do enable social networking features at third party websites like aggregated access to these social networking features to users and to connect with others across the web. This kind of feature has been covered at this blog by the term immersive web. To be named other popular aggregators are Facebook Connect, MySpace Open Platform and last but not least the open source initiative OpenID.

Advantages of these service are the easy access to websites for users without submitting a broad range of data at every service visited and to have their friends with them. Especially to small publishers it is an opportunity to get community features on a website as developing an community is not an easy task. Further interesting opportunities by aggregated networks do arise to advertisers as describe at this article.

Actually I have started to use Google Friend Connect at one of my websites, FOLDEN.INFO. My experience for now is that it is easy to start using the service. This is done by an easy to use webbased configurator without programming scills. Beside a code just two files have to be put into the directory of a website and the service is ready to work. Another reason to recommend Google Friend Connect as a website feature are the various ways to join such a website community. This may happen by account data of popular services and by OpenID.

Next I will enrich the FOLDEN.INFO website by putting some information onto the directory pages from integrated blogs. To do this I have searched for a feed mashup tool yesterday. I wanted to try something new, but found my own site and within the site RSS Mix. This works fine and I may warmly recommend FOLDEN.INFO as a source for marketing, tools and up to date services. So have a look for Google Friend Connect on FOLDEN.INFO, you are welcome.

Co Browsing beyond the Web

Co browsing or shared browsing is a way of social networking beyond the web. It is in some way a mixture of instant messaging and lifestreaming but either enhanced or different. By co browsing there are other issues shared than with lifestreams and messaging happens not only within a software but at websites in person by avatars and chat. By this it is a kind of immersive web experience.

weblin is a browser add on and software. The service describes itself as a 3d avatar chat and instant messaging. What makes it unique is that members may meet at third party websites with their avatars like within a virtual reality world. There are some typical vr features like an own inventory and even a virtual currency. The software integrates a couple of social networking features to share websites and to make posts to popular social media sites. A useful tool to meet others is the tagcloud of topsites. By the tagcloud it becomes easily recognized that weblin users do populate well known social media sites. For further information there are couple of videos available.

A similar service is itzle, which is in public beta. To use it there is no download necessary, just a plugin to install and a registration.

There are a couple of other services that will be introduced by upcoming posts. To keep connected you may subscribe to the newsfeed at the upper left.

Myrl is live and connecting Virtual Worlds

Myrl is live now and offering an aggregated access to virtual reality worlds. It is an aggregator to manage several accounts of virtual reality worlds and much more. Myrl comes up with social networking capabilities and is leading the way to an immersive web of virtual worlds. They are already connecting about twenty virtual reality services. It seems that this is another and proprietary solutions for connected worlds beside the opengrid initiative. At least I have not found any information about it at their blog.

There are already a lot of things happening at this meta virtual reality portal and social network. There are group activities and people featured and there are business opportunities with virtual clothes and the like. I guess this is a must try like the opengrid access supplied by Syntronik is.

More 3D Applications for an Immersive Web Experience

Virtual reality and social media applications and services are merging to enrich the customer experience and the features of blogs and websites as described in 3D Graphics and Social Media are getting closer. This scenario is described by the term immersive web. At the immersive web applications or services become embedded at others, which may lead to something like an aggregated or holistic experience.

There have been a couple of new 3d virtual reality services coming up, which do enable the integration into other sites or services, too.

Lively is a virtual world supplied by Google. It is a virtual reality chat and lets users create avatars and rooms. The rooms can become integrated at own web sites. Room owners may even cooperate with friends and others in designing their virtual space.

WebFlock by The Electric Sheep Company is a premium enterprise solution, which includes a complete range of entertainment and commerce features. It is flash based and by this usable by most users. The brandable and customizable solution is available by the software as a service business model.

Something special seems to come up with Myrl, which is actually in private beta. According to the description at the website this seems to become something similar to virtual worlds like social network aggregators are to the social web.