Google hooks up Twitter

Can you see a new login option featured in front and center in the sign in dialog in Google Friend Connect? It’s the microblogging ace Twitter on the Google turf. This will allow the Twitter users to log into any of the nine million sites using Friend Connect with credentials from the microblogging site. The move marks a big deal for Google recognizing the increasing power of microblogging. That means users can log into Google Friend Connect site with Twitter profile and share the new membership with your friend along with other interesting content. Webmasters having Friend Connect installed won’t need to do anything, everything works out of the box. The underlying question is what is Google up to.

James Reilly from the Google Friend Connect team announced that

Today, we’re bringing Twitter and Friend Connect even closer together. Now you can join one of over nine million Google Friend Connect sites using your Twitter login. Once signed in, your Twitter profile will be automatically linked and you can tweet your new site membership, share discussions from the comments gadget, and invite your friends via Twitter,

For Google the deal seems a huge gain. Most of the 9 million member sites are part of Google Blogger. This would automatically get included in the platform when it was launched. It would allow new audiences and promote the Friend Connect identity to others. For the users this would be another login option, but for Google it’s recognition to world’s most powerful social media.

Google lacks a large sharing platform. Google already has Orkut and Google Reader, but they haven’t been as successful ventures as Twitter or Facebook, which covers half a billion users worldwide. On the greater part Google seems to be preventing the growth of closed or hostile ecosystem. It’s too early to tell, but the feature may turn out to be a success and a big boost for Google.