Have you been looking for a way to easily add your favorite Google products to your own site? Now you can with Google Web Elements.

There are several different elements, including ones for Calendar, News, and Maps. But the one that may be of most interest to the readers of the Social Web Blog is the Conversation element. This element, powered by Google Friend Connect, lets your visitors post comments restricted to just your site or participate in a global conversation based on a topic of interest.

A global conversation takes place on several web sites simultaneously and will have a "Global conversation" label underneath the title. When visitors post to a global conversation on a specific topic, such as mandolins (as shown in the image below), the post not only shows up on the site where they posted it, but it also on any site that chooses to embed a Conversation element on mandolins, now or in the future. So now your visitors can talk about mandolins with others interested in the same topic, no matter what site they're on.

Because the Conversation element is powered by Friend Connect, visitors will be able to leave a comment by signing in with their existing Google, Yahoo, AOL, or OpenID account. Their photos will appear next to their comments and others will be able to learn more about them by viewing their profiles. And if they see comments in a foreign language, they can use the translate feature to view those comments in their own language.

You can choose from a number of predetermined topics such as cooking, movies, photography, and travel, or be creative and come up with a topic of your own. If you see a Conversation gadget you like on another site, simply click the "Embed this" link to get the code to paste it onto your own site.

We know that there are many topics you're interested in conversing about, and we're looking forward to seeing numerous global conversations ensue.



Posted by Cassie Doll, Software Engineer, Google Friend Connect

You spend a lot of time creating great content for your site, but are you ever curious about which parts of your website your community likes best? Now you and your visitors can easily find out with the new Recommendation gadgets for Google Friend Connect.


Members can recommend the content they like, anything from a whole page to a single photo, by simply clicking a button. Then you and anyone who visits your site can see what parts of your site are the most popular. The items with the most votes will surface to the top of the list, making it easier for others to find even if it's buried deep within your site. You can even see which members have recommended a given item and learn more about them.

To learn more about the recommendation gadgets, check out this sample site or watch the video below:


To add the recommendation gadgets to your site, go to google.com/friendconnect. And if you're interested in developing your own gadgets for Friend Connect, make sure to check out the Google Friend Connect Gadgets: Best Practices in Code and Interaction Design session at Google I/O. On Wednesday, May 27th, at 1:45pm, our own Ryan Boyd and Jonathan Terleski will be hosting a discussion about the best practices for designing and writing OpenSocial gadgets for the million of sites and blogs using Friend Connect. Members of the Friend Connect team will also be on hand during office hours to answer your questions. Hope to see you there.

Posted by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager, Google Friend Connect

As you're browsing through the comments that others have left on your favorite sites, have you ever come across a comment written in a language you don't understand? (We've seen a few of them here on the Social Web Blog.) Today we're introducing a new feature for the Google Friend Connect comments gadget that will help to address this problem: translations.

Now, if you see a comment in a foreign language, click on "Translate" in the lower left corner of the gadget and select your language. All comments that aren't written in your language of choice will be translated and highlighted in yellow. If you want to revert back to the original text, simply select "No Translation" from the same menu.


For the World Wide Fund For Nature, this is a great addition to their Earth Hour website. This global campaign, supported by 4,000 cities in 88 different countries, involves millions of people from around the world helping to conserve energy. Now visitors to the website can leave comments in their native language and use the translation feature to engage in meaningful discussions with the rest of the community.

Watch the video below to learn more about the comments gadget:


If you already have the comments gadget on your site, you don't need to do anything. This feature will automatically be added to your gadget. If you want to add a comments gadget on your site, go to google.com/friendconnect to get started. You can also learn more about this gadget and other Friend Connect features in the features gallery.

Post by Tony Scelfo, Software Engineer

We recently announced that we now show Google profile results at the bottom of the U.S. name-query search pages. This gives you greater control over what people find when they search for your name on Google.

While some of you may already be familiar with creating a Google profile, here are some common questions we wanted to answer:

• I saw suggested links when I created my profile. Where did they come from?
  
• We use the Social Graph API to find pages that you've publicly identified as your own, and surface these pages as suggested links when you're creating your profile.
  
• What should I add to the links section?
  
• Your profile should serve as a hub to your other content on the web. Some common links you might want to include are your Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, your Picasa Web and Flickr albums, your blog, etc.
  
• Why would I want to share my "Contact info" with everyone?
  
• The "Contact info" tab is only visible to the people you choose; it's not public. It is an easy way to keep your friends and family up-to-date with your information.
  
• How do I add a "Verified name" badge to my profile?
  
• To display a "Verified name" badge on your profile, you need to verify your name using Knol

We're eager to hear your feedback about how we can make these profiles a desirable hub for your content and how you feel about profiles giving you additional control over how you appear at the bottom of search results pages. You can now find us on Twitter as @googleprofiles. Tell us what you think using Twitter or leave feedback and vote on features on our Google Moderator page.

Posted by Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager