The technology is easy to use:

To send a tweet about a site you have joined, click the invite link in the members gadget, then click the Twitter icon on the share tab. The next time your followers sign in to Twitter, they’ll see your tweet containing a link to the interesting site you’ve found.

Friend Connect by Google seems to be growing relatively rapidly. I’m seeing it on more and more websites and that’s the whole point. If people get used to seeing this widget, they might just adopt the platform on a massive scale. If they do, the internet will become a place where you “log in” once and maintain your profile across all the websites you visit. This would make life easier for most users, and would also help websites grow by leveraging the trusted profiles of the major internet portals.

The idea of Google Friend Connect expands on Google’s gadget vision.

Social gadgets created by Google. Google Friend Connect provides a core set of social gadgets such as member management, message board, reviews, and picture-sharing. The key gadget is the members gadget. This gadget provides core social features for your visitors:

* sign-in with their existing Google, Yahoo, AIM, or OpenID account
* invite and show activity to existing friends from social networks such as Facebook, Google Talk, hi5, orkut, Plaxo, and more
* browse member profiles across social networks
* connect with new friends on your site

The implications are astounding, despite the simple interface. With a bit of programming you can completely integrate your website with all of the major social networks.

Google Friend Connect is the very type of application that Google has always done well with. The tools are free, can be distributed easily, and represent a “win-win” in some way for all parties involved. Inevitably, Google will add advertisements to the gadgets, and the monetization will be immense.

Google Friend Connect is definitely worth a look for anyone with a website.