How to set-up or install Google Friend Connect with WordPress Blog

After setting up blog and submitting your blog to the directories, the next step is the social networking for building up website traffic and thereby monetizing your website. Using Google friend connect you can bring viral social growth to your website. It is an online service by Google that allows users on the internet to connect with their friends on different websites. With Google Friend Connect, visitors to your site or blog can join your weblog by signing in with their Google, Yahoo, AIM or OpenID account. It gives you can opportunity to interact with other potential visitors  by making friends, sharing media, posting comments, playing games. You can also invite friends from other social networks and contact lists to join your site or blog.

How to set-up or integrate Google Friend Connect with WordPress Blog

Google Friend Connect is free service by Google that requires approval of the website using it. It requires no knowledge of web programming and enables any website to offer social applications and content from Facebook, Hi5, Orkut, Plaxo, MySpace, Google Talk and other social networks. To integrate with self hosted wordpress blog follow the simple steps below -

1. Login to Google Friend Connect and Click the button ‘Sign up a new site’.
2. Sign-in with your Gmail account and agree to the Terms of Service.
3. Click on the button ‘Sign up a new site’ and click ‘Continue’.
4. Enter your Blog or Website Name and URL and click ‘Continue’.
5. You will be prompted to download two html files (rpc_relay.html and canvas.html) in the root directory of your server. For example, if your domain is blog.yourdomain.com, both the files should be located at root directory like – yourdomain.com/rpc_relay.html or yourdomain.com/canvas.html. This is the most important and critical step for Google friend connect to work or proceed further because Google attempts to search for the two files on the server. Download both these files to your computer desktop or in any directory of your choice.
6. Now Connect to your FTP client like FileZilla to upload the files to the root directory of the website server.
7. Upload both the files to the root directory (Generally, it is the ‘www’ folder). Make sure that you have placed the files inside ‘www’ folder. Press the ‘Continue’ button.
8. To finalize setup, click the button ‘Test to finalize set-up’. If it throws some error then you need to check whether you have uploaded the files in the root directory or not. Make sure you have provided the correct URL of your website or blog.
9. Once successful you are nearly done with the Friend Connect integration. Click on ‘Get code for the Members gadget »’
10. Chose the gadget size and color as per your need and press ‘Generate’ button to generate the HTML code for the widget.
11. Copy the HTML code. If your blog has ‘Widgets’ then paste the code into the widget and place the widget wherever you want to. If your blog is not widgetized then navigate to Design Editor of your blog and search for sidebar php file and paste the code wherever you want to place this gadget.(Note- Take the backup of the file before you make any changes or additions).

Voilla!! Google friend connect should now be visible to your blog. If you wish to join Chris Martin’s Online Tips Website, visit the Google Friend Connect gadget placed in the sidebar. Geeks who know how to play with CSS file can modify canvas.html file before uploading to the server for a better custom look.

You can choose between other Social gadgets that keep the visitors more deeply engaged with your site, and with each other like –

Wall gadget – It allows viewers to post comments, or links to videos on your site.

Review/Rate gadget – It allows viewers or visitors of your blog to rate a page, videos, articles, books, photos, songs, et cetera. Multiple Review/Rate gadgets can be configured on one page, or for each article or post you want you blog visitors to review.

OpenSocial demonstration- It demonstrates the basic concepts that an OpenSocial developer can use in their application. It helps to-

· Fetch site name

· Fetch members list

· Fetch profile of current visitor

· Fetch friends of visitor

· Zoom in/out of canvas mode

LameGame demonstration – A “Perfect time Waster”. It is an online game where visitors simply click as often as they can to increase their score vs. their friends and other members

Custom gadget - Using this you can generate custom OpenSocial gadget to your blog.

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Tagged as: Social Networking