Google tool helps users find friends

5 February 2008

A new Google developer tool promises to help existing friends find each other in new social networks.

The Social Graph API (application programming interface), announced last week on Google's Code Blog, uses publicly declared link information in the XFN and FOAF formats to track the relationships between web users.

Using the API – a piece of code that can be integrated into a website's backend – developers of social platforms can identify users who have existing relationships and help them to link up in the new platform that they are building. Existing relationships detected by the API might include friendships in another social application, or a blogroll entry.

Google hopes that the feature will help new sites overcome one of the main barriers to achieving a 'critical mass' of people signing up: a disinclination among users to find and add the same contacts each time they join a new site.

Publisher and blogger Tim O'Reilly called the API "a major step in the development of what I've called 'the Internet Operating System'".

"In a nutshell, what the Social Graph API does is to lower the barrier to re-use of information that people publish about themselves on the web," he added.

"It's a huge step towards open standards and a level playing field in smart social apps, and exposes Google's data and infrastructure in a subtle and powerful way."

Category: Google, Social media