Google and Facebook on Thursday launched rival technology platforms that can be used to infuse Web sites with trendy social-networking features.
A Facebook Connect service that was tested for months with selected partners is now available to anyone interested in transforming static Web sites into interactive communities of users.
Internet colossus Google picked the same day to unveil a beta, or test, version of Friend Connect software aimed at “any webmaster looking to add a dash of social to his or her site.”
Online communities and user-contributed content are core aspects of the evolution of life on the Internet and the superstar California companies are evidently jockeying to be the preferred platform for Web sites.
Facebook Connect lets outside Web site operators tie into the social-networking Web site so its more than 130 million users can range the Internet from profile pages taking friends and data with them.
“Our users come to our sites to consume and engage with content around the topics they care about most,” said Michael Marquez, executive vice president of strategy and corporate development at CBS Interactive.
“We create active communities around this content, and Facebook Connect makes it easy for our users to share their opinions, ideas and advice with their entire social network,” he said.
“We opened Facebook Platform in 2007 to enable hundreds of thousands of developers to create meaningful social experiences for users on Facebook.com,” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said.
“With today’s launch of Facebook Connect, we’re extending that power to millions of entrepreneurs and developers, transforming the Web into a more social place where Facebook’s users can engage in trusted social experiences with their friends,” he said.
Google Friend Connect provides Web site operators with computer codes that add social-networking features such as creating personal profiles, finding users with similar tastes, or interacting online with friends.
“Friend Connect’s goal is to facilitate an open social Web,” Google product manager Mussie Shore wrote in a blog posting.
“This service lets webmasters add social features to their sites by simply copying and pasting a few snippets of code; no advanced coding or technical background required,” Shore wrote.
Friend Connect lets people log into participating Web sites using existing Google, Yahoo, America Online or OpenID accounts instead of requiring users to set up new log-in names and passwords.
“Friend Connect makes it simple for people to instantly interact with one another on the sites that they already love to visit,” Shore wrote.
“Additionally, Web sites that use Friend Connect become OpenSocial containers, capable of running applications created by the OpenSocial developer community,” Shore said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique