Google Friend Connect Adds Twitter Integration

Yahoo just announced that it's getting a lot more friendly with Facebook with a new level of integration across both sites. So, what better time for Google to announce an integration deal with Twitter than now? Google Friend Connect has a new login option now featured front and center in the sign in dialog, you guessed it, Twitter. Now Twitter users can log into any of the nine million sites using Friend Connect with their credentials from the microblogging site.

“Today, we're bringing Twitter and Friend Connect even closer together. Now you can join one of over nine million Google Friend Connect sites using your Twitter login. Once signed in, your Twitter profile will be automatically linked and you can tweet your new site membership, share discussions from the comments gadget, and invite your friends via Twitter,” James Reilly from the Google Friend Connect team announced.

Don't let the length of the announcement fool you, this is a big deal. Google may not be emphasizing the move too much, but this is a big victory for the microblogging platform and for social networking in general. You could argue that this is just another login option, among the many already available, but what it means is that Google is recognizing the power of one of the two rising stars in social media at the moment, the other being Facebook, but it will be a cold day in hell before Google starts integrating Facebook Connect into its products. Actually, that day may come sooner than you think but, for the time being, Google still thinks it can win this.

For now, Twitter users will be able to log into sites using Google Friend Connect to comment or just be part of the community. They can tweet out this if they want to and even share comments from the site on Twitter. Webmasters which have Friend Connect installed don't really have to do anything, everything works out of the box. It's too early to tell, but the feature may turn out to be a success and a big boost to the number Friend Connect users, something Google badly needs if it wants to take on Facebook Connect.