Google Friend Connect has added some new features this week, releasing an entire set of new options for end users and site publishers. The idea is to make it easier for people to connect on Friend Connect-supported sites, in a more personal way.

As Google Friend Connect adds the possibility for any website to become more social (in a Google sort of way), the ability to further connect based on these social interactions is a natural next step for Google. In doing so, users will have a more personalized experience when they visit a Friend Connect-supported site, as long they’re already signed into Google. Now they will also be able to more easily connect with other users based on similar interests. The heavy lifting for these connections is driven by the shared information between end users, Google and the site publisher. Google becomes the provider of data, with the site publisher acting as a virtual environment seguewaying individual connections.

That means if you visit a Friend Connect-supported fashion site, you could find yourself connected with another user that likes Free People tops. To further facilitate connections, Google will provide a way for you to directly communicate with each other. You’re already signed into Google. You already have a Gmail account. You already have Google Talk and gChat. Why not be friends, based on your shared love of adversely over-priced clothing lines?

Google has been seeking ways in which to become more social for years now, personalizing search data, creating social networks and launching a platform that everyone got on board with. Many of these initiatives have competed directly with Facebook. But the Friend Connect updates look to make it even easier for third parties to make their sites social, bringing the platform to them instead of the other way around.
Google is permeating more areas of our lives than Facebook at the moment. Especially once you factor in Google’s mobile efforts, which have the potential to collect a great deal of data on individual users. Applications on Google’s mobile platforms can tie in with GPS and Google’s own array of applications are staking their claim on the company’s mobile platforms as well.

Tying everything back to advertising, the information voluntarily given up by end users can be helpful for recommendations and the improvement of targeted ads and search engines. As ads are becoming more integrated into our email experience, Google would do well to incorporate more market research-driven data into these types of targeted ads.

Beyond the typical Google ads, however, the company is also looking at ways to make email more interactive for marketing partners. Testing is underway for a dynamic newsletter that companies can send to registered customers via Gmail. As Google Friend Connect also enables email newsletter options (based on the data collected on site visitors) with the feature updates, this may eventually tie in with Google’s tested efforts for more direct and interactive newsletters.

This is also a way for Google to make all of its other applications, including Gmail, even more social. The reverse approach to Facebook’s Platform means that site publishers have more opportunity to appeal to users that already have a Google account. While Facebook has its own Facebook Connect that competes more directly with Friend Connect, the concepts around each approach still differ in that Facebook still has a dedication to connecting existing friends instead of fully initiating new connections. Nevertheless, Facebook’s advantage over Google is the fact that many consumers may not be comfortable with a social overlay within their typical Google App activity.

There are several factors involved when calculating the effectiveness and potential of either approach. I think they will both serve their purposes in the erection of standardized platforms, attracting consumers based on their services provided.

Last week, as I fought with Snow Leopard, I spent a lot of time trying to optimize Gmail for more productivity. In the process, I came across four Labs features that I found to be incredibly useful.

Canned Responses: This Labs feature lets you include canned responses in your messages. However, I discovered it was fantastic for adding different signatures to my emails, depending on which account I was using to send.

Multiple Inboxes: This Labs feature lets you separate out some of your labels into the appearance of separate inboxes. Actually, it just let me see the labels more clearly, but it worked brilliantly. I set up an inbox for my non-profit email account and my writetech.net email account all within another Gmail account. It worked beautifully.

Mark as Read: This is just a nifty Labs item that adds a Mark as Read button to your Gmail toolbar. It’s fantastic and has nothing to do with moving to the cloud. It’s just a useful item.

Google Calendar: This little gadget allowed me to add a snippet of my Google Calendar to the right column beside my mail. It’s a helpful guide to my schedule as I poke through my mail.

Additionally, I installed the Remember the Milk widget just about anywhere I could. I tend to forget everything.

What Gmail Labs settings work for you?

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Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news atmichelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

I’ve spent the last week MIA. Earlier in the week, I installed Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro. The install went smoothly. Then I tried to accomplish things.

A real snow leopard would have done less damage. Microsoft Office products would open but were unable to save or print or print to PDF without crashing. I had the same experience with Adobe Acrobat 7 and Photoshop Elements 6. To add insult to injury, iCal and Mail were acting funky, with repeated crashes. I was unable to do anything I need to accomplish on a daily basis. I made sure I had the latest and greatest updates of all the software, but that didn’t fix the problems.

Luckily, I’d backed up all of my personal files before I started the upgrade. But I hadn’t backed up my entire machine, including all those tiny extensions, plug-ins, and shareware apps that add tweaks to different programs and the overall operating system. However, I bit the bullet. I performed a clean install of Snow Leopard, wiping out everything. A clean install means that I then had to re-install all the programs on my machine, from the iLife suite to the Adobe and Microsoft suites. Again, I made sure to download the latest and greatest of everything.

At this point, I’d invested almost 2 days in trying to upgrade my system. Imagine my surprise when I was having the exact same problems as before. I was unable to save or print and my iCal and Mail were crashing repeatedly. I investigated my issues on the Web, but these didn’t seem to be common problems. Seeing as how I needed my email, appointments, and applications in order to run my business, I had no choice. I downgraded. In order to return to Leopard (10.5), I had to do a clean install, again wiping out everything.

Day 3 found me re-installing and updating everything for the second time. Everything worked – almost. Mail didn’t function – it wouldn’t even open. I tried everything I could think of, but ended up making an appointment at the Apple Store. Unfortunately, the appointment was a day or two away.  In the meantime, I had learned a lesson – for the second time. I obviously have a hard head. About a year ago, I had a backup drive give out, and I hadn’t backed up my backup, so to speak. At that point, I gave serious consideration to storing everything in the clouds, but I never followed through. This time around, I’m all about the cloud.

I was already halfway there. My photos are already on Flickr, so I didn’t lose those. My mail is completely IMAP and/or Gmail, which means I didn’t lose too much of it. Using Gmail has gotten me into the habit of not really filing things – I just tag things and sort them into Smart Folders in Mail, but they remain on the server. I did manage to lose a couple of things, but overall I ended up okay.

Since Mail.app wasn’t working, I was able to access my mail through various webmail applications. I seriously considered moving everything into two Gmail accounts forever, and not needing to use Mail.app ever again. Unfortunately, I’m not willing to part with my IMAP accounts and move to POP. In order to use only Gmail and/or Google Apps for Your Domain for all of my email addresss (six of them), I would have to change them all over to POP. So Gmail for everything was out. Alternatively I tried Mozilla Thunderbird, which I disliked, and Entourage. Entourage had some nice qualities, but like Outlook, it doesn’t handle IMAP very well. I was stuck.

As for my iCal, I was already in the cloud. When I made the decision many months ago to switch away from an iPhone, I knew I’d need to sync my calendar and contacts somehow – and it might not be Mac-friendly, so I bought Spanning Sync and started syncing everything with Google. So my calendars were synced not only with my Google account, but with Mobile Me. The only change I made was to install Google Gears so that now I can access my calendar if I’m ever offline.

For To Do/Tasks, I finally broke down and started using Remember the Milk. I know, everyone has been using RTM for ages. I’m behind the curve. Using Gears, I can access it when I’m offline, and I installed the widget to the right of my Google Calendar as well.

I downloaded DropBox and I’m going to use all 2 GB, I think, and I may upgrade to a paid version (50 GB for $10/month). I’ll store all of my client contracts, latest and greatest client updates, and so on out there. I can access it from anywhere and I feel better with my most important files in the cloud instead of just sitting on a backup drive. I’ve already been bitten by that.

My bookmarks and passwords were lost. In a way, this was probably a good thing. I’m now going to be a lot more secure. I downloaded KeePass, an open-source password manager that will store my most important passwords, including passwords to things on my computer (as opposed to just things online). The database file for KeePass is stored in my DropBox. Additionally, I started using Xmarks. Xmarks syncs my Firefox bookmarks across computers. Additionally, it syncs my Web passwords and brought in my Delicious bookmarks as well. However, it does seem to blow up if it tries to sync with Safari, but only if Safari is already syncing with Mobile Me.

So that’s how I’m moving into my own little cloud. I still have a few issues to work out. Logging into bub.blicio.us, for example, only seems to happen if I use Safari and not Firefox. The Apple Store Geniuses played around with my Mac yesterday and rescued Mail.app for me. It was using a Snow Leopard preference file in regular Leopard. So much for a clean install. But overall, I’m finally back in one piece – and cloudlike.

Photo credits: Snow Leopard via CC

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Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news atmichelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

by Michelle Lentz

Google has added a standalone contact manager for users who either don’t use Gmail or for those who want to access their contacts without dealing with their mail. For Outlook users who want to also manage their contacts in the cloud, this is a great option.

You can access this feature from http://www.google.com/contacts. There aren’t any new impressive features, but you can still import contacts from common email applications. (You need to use the free A to G app for Apple Mail.)  If you have a GMail account, your GMail contacts appear here. If you are a Google apps user, the Contacts Manager needs to be enabled by your administrator from the “Add more services” link at the Control Panel.

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
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by Michelle Lentz

Every now and then we all send an email that we instantly regret sending. If you’re lucky enough to be on an exchange server, you can recall a sent email. Now you can do that from Gmail as well.

Go to your Gmail Settings and click the Labs tab. There is now the option to Undo Send.

Once you’ve enabled this feature, you have two chances to call back a sent message. You can hit cancel when you see the Sending … message.

Alternatively, you have about 5 seconds to hit Undo when the Sent message appears.

Either way, you have to react quickly. You better regret that Sent message instantly. But isn’t it nice to have the option?

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Blogs: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

by Michelle Lentz

Other than a bad pun, what is Google’s Appy Holidays? Well, it’s a surprisingly useful collection of their applications themed and ready for the holiday season.

Appy Holidays links you to Google Docs, which has templates for things such as invitations, cards, holiday gift lifts, wish lists, gift tags, address lists, and holiday letters. It also links to your Google Calendar, with no holiday theme, but it does allow you to share appointments for those cookie baking dates and holiday parties you’re attending. Appy Holidays links to Picasa to share and edit your holiday images. Finally, it links to Google Chat’s new video integration. Your relatives aren’t that far away after all.

I found the holiday templates in Google Docs incredibly useful. I’ve been keeping a list of everyone we have to buy for in my head, so a holiday spreadsheet I could easily share with my husband was the perfect solution. Like me, you’re probably familiar with the rest of it, but I like the fact that Google has grouped it so easily in one spot and tied it into the holidays.

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology
Friendfeed: michellel
Blogs: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

by Michelle Lentz

So I opened my Gmail today to find a closable banner across the top, letting me know about themes. Similar to the fun themes you can add to your iGoogle, you can now theme your Gmail.

According to the Gmail Blog:

Gmail fans have been building unofficial extensions to spice up their inboxes for a while, but up til now themes haven’t been an integral part of Gmail. We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we’re launching today, there’s a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company. There’s even an old school ascii theme (Terminal) which was the result of a bet between two engineers — it’s not exactly practical, but it’s great for testing out your geek cred.

So log in and spice up your Gmail. Click Settings –> Themes. They’re rolling out themes to everyone over the next couple of days, so if you don’t see it yet, it’s coming.

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Contact Michelle with your news, apps, and events via email at michelle[at]writetech.net, Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed. Visit Michelle at Wine-Girl.net and Write Technology.