Google Friend Connect vs. Facebook Friend Connect, Good for Business?

The Friend Connect war is on, and two big players have thrown down the gauntlet.  Recently Google Friend Connect expanded their preview beta of the product, and Facebook gave notice of the availability of Facebook Friend Connect.  Both services provide a way for site owners to have more direct interaction with site visitors who have one of the common social network accounts.  This is big news for those interested in social networking for business. How do the services compare, and how might they serve site owners increased website traffic with qualified visitors?

I spent about 10 minutes setting up Google Friend Connect on a blog last week.  Facebook Friend Connect, well, that is another story.  After finding all the documentation, I decided to search on Twitter for someone who is using it, and met a new friend in Vietnam (gotta love social networking).  My new friend Ninh had it setup on his blog (since then he has removed it, he said it is too buggy), so instead of fussing with it anymore, I decided to visit his to experience it myself. 

The real question is, how does Google Friend Connect and Facebook Friend Connect stack up, and which one is best when it comes to social networking for business?
Installation and Configuration:

Google Friend Connect: Once you are approved for the program, it is a matter of uploading two files to the root of your server, and enabling a javascript code on your site.  I have average technical knowledge and had it done in about 10 minutes.

Facebook Friend Connect:  To be clear, I was interested in installing this on a WordPress blog, so there may be less steps on another platform.  Truthfully it was more than I was willing to fuss with.  The net of it is you need to:
•    Setup an application on the Facebook Developers network complete with API and security keys.
•    Upload the plugin to your blog, and activate
•    Configure the new Facebook Connect plugin with the API and secret keys.
•    Determine if you want to enable auto comment approval (if their truly friends, this might be a good option)
•    Configure Facebook comment templates
•    Add the Facebook FriendConnect Widget, make any edits to the widgets appearance.
The whole process will take about 30 minutes if you know what you are doing, 1 to 2 hours otherwise.

Winner: Google Friend Connect.  It is just plain simple to setup and configure.

Usability

Google Friend Connect: It is fairly simple to modify your profile information, and they have a great opportunity to extend the functionality.  In fact, they just added twitter integration, and look for other integration pieces to emerge as the battle heats up.  There is more to this than just a user piece, there is an administration piece as well, it is very basic at this point, and no doubt this will be extended going forward.

Facebook Friend Connect:  From a users perspective, you click the Facebook Connect button and are prompted with the familiar secure Facebook Login screen.  After logging in you see that you are one of the recent members of the community, and it creates user profile for you automatically in the wordpress blog, with information in your Facebook profile.

What can a Facebook Connect user on my blog do?
•    Update their user profile.  The version I saw had the website field as the Facebook profile.  For business users may want to change this to your business web property.
•    Invite Facebook friends to the site.  Like many Facebook Apps this prompts you with your friend list, where you select up to 20 friends (always include a personal message) and sent the invitation.
•    See all community members.  See their Facebook friends in the community.
•    Leave a comment on the blog, while logged in, and a this event is recorded in their Facebooks users’ feed.
The administration piece of Facebook Friend Connect I haven’t seen enough of to write on here, but like any emerging technology, it has some work to do to really make it compelling.

Winner: Edge to Facebook, although this will be a long-term battle before a real winner emerges.  They have a significant edge of what I call authentic profiles (120 million+), people who really use the service.

The battle is on, and there will certainly be more to discuss in the future.  Social Networking for Business is here, if you haven’t done so already, join the site with the Friend Connect links on the right side of this post, and let me know which Friend Connect you have decided on for the time being.

How to Get Started with Google Friend Connect: No time like the present, right?  Go ahead and click the Join button in the Google Friend Connect box to the right where it says “Google Friend Connect …Join In”.  Login, and join the site.  If you don’t have a Google account, it will prompt you to create one.  Then review other site members, and add them as friends.