Putting a badge for a Facebook Page into your Blog

<b>This article describes making a Facebook badge to promote your page, and putting it onto your blog.</b><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><h2>What is a Facebook page</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwz8Vw5_eX7YTdZKIr_s3BlmEMbtkbF8BXQIkmaG_S4hC14HwTNFwiwsBghVKllQ9CI5QRC6OPxdsurdefGth56M0wujFgp0_8-WQFMuR5ki6Ko0qwqf8yLHDqLFYl5HDdKztYOr1ZC1Q/s1600/show-facebook-page-inside-blogger.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwz8Vw5_eX7YTdZKIr_s3BlmEMbtkbF8BXQIkmaG_S4hC14HwTNFwiwsBghVKllQ9CI5QRC6OPxdsurdefGth56M0wujFgp0_8-WQFMuR5ki6Ko0qwqf8yLHDqLFYl5HDdKztYOr1ZC1Q/s320/show-facebook-page-inside-blogger.png" width="320" /></a></div>This article is about how to make a badge to promote a Facebook <b>Page</b>.<br /><br />This is an example of the "follow me" <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/04/linking-your-blog-to-social-networks.html">approach to linking your blog and the social networks</a>, although for Facebook pages your reader becomes a Fan rather than a Friend.<br /><br />Many people are confused about when they should use each of the types of "thing" in Facebook, ie<br /><ul><li><b>Profiles</b> - accounts for flesh-and-blood, living, breathing, individual people</li><li><b>Pages</b> - for websites, brands, and organisations that don't want to approve all their Facebook members</li><li><b>Groups</b> -  for organisations that want to approve individual members who join (and in return, group-owners can send private messages to individual members.</li></ul>The most common "thing" for blogs to have is a Page - and a Badge is the tool which Facebook provides to help you to promote a Page on your blog or other website.<br /><br /><br /><h2>How to make a badge to promote a Facebook Page</h2>View all your Pages using the arrow drop-down at the very top right of Facebook's toobar.<br /><i>(Facebook chance the place for actions like this from time to time - you may need to look around to find your pages.)</i><br /><br />Copy the URL for the Page you want to promote <br /><i>(One way is to right click on its name, and choose copy-link-location- or whatever phrase your browser uses.   Another is to to go the page, and copy the URLfrom your address bar.)</i><br /><br />Come back to this article and click  here --- <b><a href="http://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/" target="_blank">Facebook Social Plugins</a></b>, to reach Facebook's tools.<br /><i>(I used to have instructions to launch this from Facebook - but I cannot find any link to it from my Pages page any more.)</i><br /><br />Choose <b>Page Plugin  / Web.  </b><br /><br />Scroll down the page, and set the options for your badge.  The first one is critical - the others optional:<br /><ul><li><b>Facebook Page URL</b> - this needs to be changed to the URL of your page (which you copied earlier)<br />If you have less than 25 Fans already, then your page's URL will be something like http://www.facebook.com/pages/Blogger-Hints-and-Tips/144194435594821 and you can get it by copying the link from the list of Pages for your account.<br />Once you have more than 25 fans, you can choose a  page-url on the Edit Info > Username screen.</li></ul><ul><li><b>Tab </b>- the tab on your page that is shown</li></ul><ul><li> <b>Width</b> - choose a value that suits the space on your template where you want to put the box.</li><li>Show <b>faces</b>, show <b>header</b>:  choose options that suit your purpose and blog template</li><li>Show <b>stream</b>:  this controls whether you show posting from the Page inside your blog</li></ul>As you choose options, the preview at the bottom updates to show what the button will look like:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjqUxNL5MxM6nXM-dUZ5oXHcHP3Nb4A_3XsicTn7PhFclmiZrTdlLEje5XFRFmeNSDt6jHiXwThKWceUkBypMFkHVb8c7Ph3R6AoondKXVM1vRSrKQDL1kljJDYlEwarJoKKuYzOs3onY/s1600/facebook-page-plugin-options-promote-facebook-on-website-for-free.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjqUxNL5MxM6nXM-dUZ5oXHcHP3Nb4A_3XsicTn7PhFclmiZrTdlLEje5XFRFmeNSDt6jHiXwThKWceUkBypMFkHVb8c7Ph3R6AoondKXVM1vRSrKQDL1kljJDYlEwarJoKKuYzOs3onY/s400/facebook-page-plugin-options-promote-facebook-on-website-for-free.PNG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />When you are happy with the selections, choose <b>Get Code</b>.<br /><ul><li>Currently, there are options for an iframe or Javascript SDK:   <b>I recommend using the iframe</b>, unless you are comfortable with the two-part installation needed for the Javascripit, and you are sure that the visitors you want to target will have Javascripti enabled. </li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqDxX4sFe2UJ623dyXYOqCAOeDjcUDumuLWuK0XEj_q5MIeAfoXj2tdWIw73Dkh9zTtIfxpGtQecgLsYVaRzUFnSjDXcV_cpMiFHD21uWHRd8Q-D68GclFu3Gbsbir4g-NX7SuaCUhczM/s1600/iframe-vs-javascript-SDK-code-installation-option-tab-selection.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqDxX4sFe2UJ623dyXYOqCAOeDjcUDumuLWuK0XEj_q5MIeAfoXj2tdWIw73Dkh9zTtIfxpGtQecgLsYVaRzUFnSjDXcV_cpMiFHD21uWHRd8Q-D68GclFu3Gbsbir4g-NX7SuaCUhczM/s400/iframe-vs-javascript-SDK-code-installation-option-tab-selection.PNG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><b>Copy</b> the code provided<br /><div><br /><b>Install</b> the code into your blog - there several options for <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/putting-html-code-from-third-party-into.html">installing the HTML</a>, depending on where you want to put the badge or button.<br /><br /><br /><b>Job Done!   </b>Your blog will now display a gadget that promotes the selected Facebook page - people can view and like your Page from within your blog.<br /><br /><br /><h2>What your visitors will see</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK5NRtiux-DOzgSniwuze2C01jut1Zpi-crFrSf8jyU9eAaAHD1NHJRB3-Lii4_Qxiu3z29MAUjbekev6LNNwM4STyasWgcofNvMP7ffSQn-IbncCaG_Ms2dM35LY7FvOD_UdoONVwivYR/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK5NRtiux-DOzgSniwuze2C01jut1Zpi-crFrSf8jyU9eAaAHD1NHJRB3-Lii4_Qxiu3z29MAUjbekev6LNNwM4STyasWgcofNvMP7ffSQn-IbncCaG_Ms2dM35LY7FvOD_UdoONVwivYR/" width="200" /></a></div>People who visit your blog through a web-browser will see a Facebook area, including a Like button and whatever other options you have chosen.<br /><br />This can be quite a powerful tool:  you can easily use two or three different combinations on different parts of your blog:  one that has no border, no faces and no header but does show a Stream can effectively look like a "live" feed from your Facebook page to your blog, while another one with different options can show off the size of your fan-base.<br /><br />Be aware that the Like button shown in this button gives people the option to Like your Page in facebook  - not your blog directly, and not the current post that they are reading.   If you want them to be able to Like your blog or blog-posts, you need to provide this option separately (and many of your visitors are likely to be confused by the different).<br /><br />As always, people who <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-rss-subscribe-to-posts-is-important.html">read your blog via a feed reader</a> (Bloglines, Google Reader, etc), or by email subscription (eg having used follow-by-email) may not see the Facebook item, depending on where is places and what options their email program has.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Customizing the code</h2>You can change the characteristics of the box without having to generate the code from Facebook again.   For example you can later the width and/or height - just remember to do it in both of the places required if you are using the iframe option:<br /><blockquote><iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpages%2FBlogger-Hints-and-Tips%2F144194435594821&amp;<b>width=160</b>&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;show_faces=false&amp;border_color=purple&amp;stream=true&amp;header=false&amp;<b>height=395</b>" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; <b>width:160px; height:395px;</b>" allowTransparency="true"></iframe> </blockquote><br />fyi, I could have just quoted this code, and said to use it on your blog.  But I don't usually do this when I'm describing how to link Blogger and any third party product, because it's likely that Facebook (or whoever) will change their code in the future:  <i><b>it's always safest to get the most up-to-date copy of the code from the source-site</b></i> when you need it. <br /><br />The facebook page where you get the code from also has more information about controls you can set in the code, too.   Check it out for more information.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Do you need to own the page you want to promote?</h2>No - not any more.<br /><br />At one stage, the first step in these instructions was to<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Log into Facebook with a profile (ie personal account) that has <b>administrator rights for the page</b> you want to promote."</blockquote><br />But that's no longer necessary.   You can promote any Facebook page that you want to, on your blog.<br /><br />But be aware that if you show the page-feed on your blog, and you don't own the page, then you have no control over what is shown.   It's possible that a feed from someone else's Page will show material which breaks Blogger's terms and conditions - or which you simply don't want on your blog.    For this reason along, I'd recommend only promoting your own, or closely trusted, pages on your blog.<br /><br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/putting-html-code-from-third-party-into.html">Putting HTML from a third-party into your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-data-in-blogger-blogs-is-organised.html">How the data in Blogger blogs is organised</a> <br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/02/linking-blogs-and-websites.html">Linking Blogs and Websites</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/04/tools-for-linking-blogger-and-social.html">Tools for linking Blogger and the Social Networking sites</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/03/putting-facebook-share-this-badge-on.html">Putting a Facebook "share this" button on your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/copyright-blogs-and-bloggers.html">Copyright, Blogs and Bloggers</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-rss-subscribe-to-posts-is-important.html">Why RSS / Subscribe to Posts is important for bloggers</a></div>

Putting a badge for a Facebook Page into your Blog

This article describes making a Facebook badge to promote your page, and putting it onto your blog. What is a Facebook page This article is ...

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How to set up Twitter's "view summary" cards to work with Blogger posts

<b>This article shows how to install Twitter Cards into Blogger - and explains why you might do this if Twitter could be an important source of visitors for your blog.</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><h2>What are Twitter Cards</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5_7kQiqBfIk/Ujh2zLCfM-I/AAAAAAAAQUA/7EDKkuOM14k/s722/make-twitter-summary-infromation-come-from-blogger.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5_7kQiqBfIk/Ujh2zLCfM-I/AAAAAAAAQUA/7EDKkuOM14k/s320/make-twitter-summary-infromation-come-from-blogger.png" width="320" /></a></div>Recently, Neil Patel <a href="http://www.quicksprout.com/2013/03/25/social-media-meta-tags-how-to-use-open-graph-and-cards/" target="_blank">explained</a> why having social sharing tags installed into your blog can be important, and I've written a little more about it specifically for Facebook and Blogger <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2013/06/add-facebook-open-graph-tags-to-blogger-for-better-looking-shares-and-likes.html">here</a>.<br /><br />Twitter, for reasons best known to themselves, have developed their own version of <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/04/linking-your-blog-to-social-networks.html">social media</a> meta-tags, called "Twitter Cards".    (Apparently they do make some use of Open Graph tags - but not for Twitter cards displays.)<br /><br /><br />Two things happen inside Twitter when someone tweets a message including a link to a website or blog that has Twitter-cards installed.   <br /><br />Firstly, the message has the words "View Summary" under it, instead of just "Expand".<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HpGY8ytvMX0/Ujh2z2ewFPI/AAAAAAAAQTw/2RkVRHKAMcE/s625/twitter-difference-between-expand-and-view-summary-commands.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HpGY8ytvMX0/Ujh2z2ewFPI/AAAAAAAAQTw/2RkVRHKAMcE/s640/twitter-difference-between-expand-and-view-summary-commands.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />Secondly, when someone in Twitter clicks the View Summary link, more information (ie a "Twitter Card") is shown about the contents of the link - like this:<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qo0RBQnGbXQ/Ujh20bxw9MI/AAAAAAAAQT8/IovTH9kj_BU/s576/twitter-effects-of-expand-and-view-summary-with-twitter-cards-installed.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qo0RBQnGbXQ/Ujh20bxw9MI/AAAAAAAAQT8/IovTH9kj_BU/s640/twitter-effects-of-expand-and-view-summary-with-twitter-cards-installed.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />In his post, Neil Patel also stated that if you don't use Wordpress,<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>"you’ll need to manually generate meta tags for each page on your site"</i></blockquote>but fortunately for Blogger users who are brave enough to <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-to-edit-your-blogger-template.html">edit their template</a> that's not quite true.<br /><br /><br /><h2>How to install Twitter Cards into a blog made with Blogger</h2>There are two simple steps needed to set up Twitter sharing tags for your blog: <br /><ul><li>Adding the code to your template, and then </li><li>Asking Twitter if you've got it right.    </li></ul>The 2nd step is necessary because (for whatever reason) Twitter won't use the tags you have installed until you've tested them in Twitter's own validation tool.<br /><br /><br /><h3>Step 1   Add the Twitter Card meta-tags to your template</h3><br />Edit your template in the usual way.<br /><br /><br />Find the   </head   statement, and just <b>before </b>it add the following lines of code:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><!--  START - TWITTER CARD TAGS   --></span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><meta name="twitter:site" content="@<b><span style="color: red;">YOUR-TWITTER-ACCOUNT-NAME</span></b>"/> </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><meta name="twitter:domain" content="<b><span style="color: red;">YOUR-BLOG-URL</span></b>"/><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><meta name="twitter:title" expr:content='data:blog.pageName'/></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b:else/><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><meta expr:content='data:blog.homepageUrl' name='twitter:url'/><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><meta expr:content='data:blog.pageTitle' name='twitter:title'/></span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"></b:if></span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b:if cond='data:blog.postImageThumbnailUrl'></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><meta name="twitter:image:src" expr:content='data:blog.postImageThumbnailUrl'/></span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b:else/></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><meta name="twitter:image:src" content='<span style="color: red;"><b>URL-FOR-IMAGE-YOU-WANT-TO-USE-IF-THERE-IS-NOT-A-THUMBNAIL-PHOTO-IN-THE-POST</b></span>' /></span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"></b:if> </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b:if cond='data:blog.metaDescription'></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><meta name="twitter:description" expr:content='data:blog.metaDescription'/></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b:else/></span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><!-- Still looking for a way to use the post snippet if there's no description --></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"></b:if></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><meta name='twitter:url' expr:content='data:blog.canonicalUrl'/</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">></span><br /><!--  END - TWITTER CARD TAGS   --></blockquote><br /><br /><div>Except, you need to <b>replace</b> a few items with your own values:<br /><ul><li><b>YOUR-BLOG-URL</b> - with your blog's address (eg for me, it's blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com)</li></ul><ul><li><b>YOUR-TWITTER-ACCOUNT-NAME</b> - with the Twitter account name for your blog. (This line is optional)</li></ul><ul><li><b>URL-FOR-IMAGE-YOU-WANT-TO-USE-IF-THERE-IS-NOT-A-THUMBNAIL-PHOTO-IN-THE-POST</b> - with the web-address of an alternative picture to use if the post doesn't have a <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/07/postsnippet-and-postthumbnail-tools-for.html">thumbnail</a> image.</li></ul><br /><b>Save </b>the template changes.<br /><br /><br />(Twitter also have a code-generator - but it's for websites in general, while I have configured the code above to use some of the values that Blogger makes available to us.)<br /><br /><br /><h3>Step 2   Validate your domain</h3><div><br />After you have done the first step, go  <a href="https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/validation/validator" target="_blank">https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/validation/validator</a>.  This is Twitter's validating tool, where they check if your code meets their requirements.</div><br /><br />Log in using your Twitter account.   <br /><i>You do need to have a Twitter account yourself - or at least one that is dedicated to the blog - to use the validator and thus to install Twitter Cards.</i><br /><br /><br />Click the <b>Validate and Apply</b> tab.<br /><br /><br />Enter the address of <b>a post</b> from your blog and press Go.<br /><br /><br />If you're using a browser that supports showing Twitter Cards, then a preview of the card for your post will be shown in the right side of the screen.   <b>Check</b> that this looks correct.<br /><br /><br />Look at the <b>list of results</b> of your Twitter-card values shown on the left of the screen.   If any of them show a red-dot, then there is a problem that you need to fix.   Typically this will be because you've accidentally left out a quote mark when you were adding your custom values.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4kjhHGtStqM/Ujh2y-61MmI/AAAAAAAAQTk/HHnv_h6Ir9g/s427/install-twitter-cards-validator-results-pane-red-lights-problems.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4kjhHGtStqM/Ujh2y-61MmI/AAAAAAAAQTk/HHnv_h6Ir9g/s640/install-twitter-cards-validator-results-pane-red-lights-problems.png" width="529" /></a></div><br /><br /><b>Fix </b>any problems, and enter the blog-post URL again - keep going until you get a green dot at the top of the list.    (Some of the twitter card values are option, so it doesn't matter if they show as grey because they're irrelevant for a Blogger site.)<br /><br /><br />Enter the <b>URL of your blog</b> overall  (ie not a specific post). <br /><ul><li>If you do nothave a custom domain (ie your blog is  myBlog.blogspot.com), then make sure you <b>enter the blogspot.com URL</b>, not the country-specific one (eg   myBlog.blogspot.in).   This is important later in the validation process.</li></ul><ul><li>Fix any problems for this as well.   (There shouldn't be any, but I think it's worth double-checking, especially if you modify the twitter-cards code in any way.)</li></ul><br /><br />Press the <b>Request Approval</b> button at the top of the left hand sidebar.<br /><br /><br />Confirm the <b>administrative details</b> on the screen that opens - by default it will be filled in with details from your Twitter account.   You may be asked for:<br /><ul><li>Contact information for the person responsible for administering cards on your website (name, email address, Twitter handle)</li><li>Website information:   the URL (ie the domain), and a description.   Note:  if you are based outside the USA and don't have a custom domain, then most probably your country-specific address will be shown here.    Change it to the blogspot.com   address.</li><li>Whether your site publishes images or videos that may contain sensitive content (eg nudity, violence, or medical procedures) - so that Twitter can warn viewers before showing them.</li><li>The website's Twitter-name.</li></ul></div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-irJE-Q4StfE/Ujh2zC2531I/AAAAAAAAQTs/eCX79Pqot8w/s675/twitter-card-request-domain-approval-fields-and-meanings.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-irJE-Q4StfE/Ujh2zC2531I/AAAAAAAAQTs/eCX79Pqot8w/s640/twitter-card-request-domain-approval-fields-and-meanings.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Press <b>Submit Request</b>.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>After a moment, if your details are correct, Twitter shows a message saying </div><div>"<span style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Liberation Sans', FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 25.33333396911621px;">Thanks for applying to be part of Twitter's cards service. We'll review your request as soon as possible. Expect a few weeks for turn-around time. You will receive an email when your request has been reviewed.</span>"</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not sure if they apply this to all (or indeed any) countries or Twitter accounts:   when I installed Twitter Cards for this site, I got an email in a few minutes saying .</div><div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>Your Twitter card is ready!<br />We've activated the summary card for blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com.<br /> If you want to use other kinds of Twitter cards (and we know you do), please make another request. </i></blockquote><br />And the cards themselves were activated on a <a href="https://twitter.com/BloggerHAT/statuses/379996777526464512" target="_blank">test-tweet</a> that I did a few minutes after that.<br /><br /><br /><h2>What your readers see</h2>If you have installed the Twitter Cards correctly, your current readers should see nothing different when they visit your blog or when they read your posts via email or and RSS feeder.<br /><br />But when they include a reference to your blog in something that they send out inside Twitter, the content that they (and their followers) see is a nicely formatted card rather than an ugly-url.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>Troubleshooting</h2><div><br /></div><h3>Search Descriptions</h3><div>Twitter cards will only work properly if you have enabled Search Descriptions for your blog, and if you have entered one for every post that is tweeted.    I looked for ways around this using the post-snippet, but haven't found a way to make this work yet.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><h3>Country-specific redirects</h3>Neil Patel suggested one tag that is not included in the standard Twitter Cards documentation: twitter:url<br /><br />Using it gets around the problems associated with country-specifc URLs for blogspot domain blogs, by changing any Tweets of them to the blogspot.com page, instead of having your tweets split across multiple urls.<br /><br />I've included it in my list of tags, customized to take its value from Blogger.    However I'm not yet 100% sure if it will work - and will update this article accordingly.<br /><br /><br /><h3>Pictures</h3>I've set up the image tag to use the thumbnail picture for each post - because that is the only one that you can access on a systematic way for each post.<br /><br />Twitter's rules say that pictures must be less than 1mb in file size, at least 60px by 60px, and that ones larger than 120px by 120px will be resized.    However Blogger may have a thumbnail photo for some of your posts that is less than 60-by-60.   For these it is likely that your default image will be used instead.<br /><br />The only way to over-ride this is to use a post-specific Twitter meta-tag which points to a larger photo like:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b:if cond='data:blog.postURL == &quot;URL-OF-THE-POST&quot;'></span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><meta name="twitter:image:src" content='</span><span style="color: red; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b>URL-FOR-IMAGE-YOU-WANT-TO-USE-FOR-THIS-POST</b></span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">' /></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"></b:if></span></blockquote><div><br /></div><h3>Domains</h3>Twiter's documentation was initially a little sketchy about which specific domain should be validated. Some people reported having to validate all three possible URLs, ie<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">www.your-blog.blogspot.com<br />your-blog.blogspot.com<br />/*your-blog.blogspot.com</blockquote>although it is possible that this has now been resolved.<br /><br /><br /><h3>What other problems have you encountered with Twitter Cards?</h3><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles:</h2><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2013/06/add-facebook-open-graph-tags-to-blogger-for-better-looking-shares-and-likes.html">Adding Facebook's Open Graph tags to your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-to-edit-your-blogger-template.html">How to edit your template</a> </div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/07/postsnippet-and-postthumbnail-tools-for.html">Post.thumbnail: a summary image for each Blogger post</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/04/linking-your-blog-to-social-networks.html">Linking your blog to the social networks</a></div>

How to set up Twitter's "view summary" cards to work with Blogger posts

This article shows how to install Twitter Cards into Blogger - and explains why you might do this if Twitter could be an important source of...

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How to automatically share every Blogger post you publish on your Google+ page or profile

This quick-tip is about Google's new feature for automagically sharing every Blogger post to Google+<br /><br /><a name="more"></a><br /><br />This post explains how to do it:<br /><br /><!-- Place this tag where you want the widget to render. --><br /><div class="g-post" data-href="https://plus.google.com/110587955497525318489/posts/ZShXeVRcXxh"></div><br /><i>(How did I do that? Using <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2013/09/embedding-a-google-plus-post-in-your-blog-or-website.html">Google+'s new embed</a> feature. Do you like it? Should I make more quick-tips like this?)<br /></i><br /><br /><br />Something I haven't been able to figure out yet is whether this happens for all posts (including edits of existing posts) or just for newly published posts. If it's the former, then <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/12/get-your-posts-right-before-you-publish.html">getting your posts right before you publish them</a> is probably more important than ever.

How to automatically share every Blogger post you publish on your Google+ page or profile

This quick-tip is about Google's new feature for automagically sharing every Blogger post to Google+ This post explains how to do it: (H...

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How to embed a Google+ post into your blog post or website - and what happens when you do

<b>This article explains how you can put a Google+ post (your own or someone else's) into your blog or website, provide the post was shared publicly on Google+.</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><br />Recently, Google+ <a href="http://googleplusplatform.blogspot.ie/2013/09/google-attribution-and-embedded-posts.html" target="_blank">announced</a> a couple of new features.   One of them, embeddable posts, has a lot of potential for bloggers.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Look what s/he said on Google+</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJfRTuKVA62YtxDIacvmhzlfGQKRF74xqyKpLeNErqJ5VRj4j_BzFz9NlQ4haLfaNjXtIICcJPteCd8pNLenF5QbSvAI-nTkfhs6bFG6EGMAKMs_2Ig5gBSghg3IYkK0Z1MJscqh_5Qjm/s604/embed-google-plus-post-on-blogger-easy-code-insertion.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJfRTuKVA62YtxDIacvmhzlfGQKRF74xqyKpLeNErqJ5VRj4j_BzFz9NlQ4haLfaNjXtIICcJPteCd8pNLenF5QbSvAI-nTkfhs6bFG6EGMAKMs_2Ig5gBSghg3IYkK0Z1MJscqh_5Qjm/s320/embed-google-plus-post-on-blogger-easy-code-insertion.png" width="280" /></a></div>Embedding a Google+ post into a blog post is an example of the "look what he/she/I said over there" approach to <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/04/linking-your-blog-to-social-networks.html">linking blogs and social-networking sites</a>.<br /><br />It gives people who are reading your blog up-to-date information about how many other people have plus-1'd the linked content, and an easy way to interact with it "over there" themselves - without leaving your blog.<br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br /><br /><h2>Why would you want to do this?</h2><h3>The short answer: </h3>Because you want to write about a Google+ post, and give your readers an easy way to +1 it or comment on it without leaving your blog.<br /><br /><h3>The long answer: </h3>Because blogs are better than social-networking sites for developing ideas your ideas.<br /><br />Recently <a href="http://www.copyblogger.com/google-plus-sharecropping/" target="_target">CopyBlogger</a> described 8 reasons why blogs and social media tools (especially Google+) are complementary. He makes excellent points.  But I think he glosses over one fundamental issue: social media posts are short, and give you limited control over their formatting.   Blog posts can be (and usually are) longer, including several pictures, several ideas - and they are constructed to show the connections between the pieces.  They let you develop a case, discuss, compare and contrast - and all the other types of writing that you learned in school.    And as we all learned in school, presentation matters. Showing a picture of what you're writing about gets you better "marks" and more positive feedback.<br /><br />So - embedding a Google+ post which you're writing, rather than just describing it, makes a blog post far more interesting.<br /><br />And because they're embedded rather than just shown as a screenshot, these types of Google+ posts get updated +1 counts and comments, without your readers having to leave your blog.<br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>How to put a Google+ post into your blog</h2><br />Log into your Google+ account - or simply follow a link that someone else gives you, and <b>view a public Google Plus post</b> - this can be from either a personal profile or a <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-now-has-pages-letting-us-set-up.html">Google+ page</a><b>.</b><br /><br /><br />When you are looking at a G+ post that you want to put into a blog or website, click on the <b>drop-down menu</b> in the top right corner.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZm9d_I-YCyXPWUjOl-bWIqAjFIIlJEgBNHWHMFGim58K98dDsvOK4MBdz6iFuocArDreKPDZugTn3j8NLbA8cA_GkvJ_9PXhDYju-jfsEjageBt-RhOxq1D9nu9Fg9iu1COTRX5r3LwUr/s506/google-plus-post-stream-actions-menu-choose-an-option.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZm9d_I-YCyXPWUjOl-bWIqAjFIIlJEgBNHWHMFGim58K98dDsvOK4MBdz6iFuocArDreKPDZugTn3j8NLbA8cA_GkvJ_9PXhDYju-jfsEjageBt-RhOxq1D9nu9Fg9iu1COTRX5r3LwUr/s400/google-plus-post-stream-actions-menu-choose-an-option.png" width="357" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />If the post is public, then there will be an Embed option in the menu-list.   Choose <b>Embed</b>.<br /><br /><br /><b>Copy the code </b>that is shown, and put it into a post or gadget the same way you would <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/putting-html-code-from-third-party-into.html">install any other 3rd party code</a>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxh4crzLIOiLty2grriRet7x_LM7IclG_bVJBjwyvUCsIP9LzJq1nmYeiNPsvTb_F7cbZYcWH5RH_aNVfjUSgyMm3BoipMfS9Mnfqdj9rfPQ-FryrAW902KR0MZZO3-InlvnYD_Xqm0OqT/s665/code-copy-window-google-plus-embed-request.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxh4crzLIOiLty2grriRet7x_LM7IclG_bVJBjwyvUCsIP9LzJq1nmYeiNPsvTb_F7cbZYcWH5RH_aNVfjUSgyMm3BoipMfS9Mnfqdj9rfPQ-FryrAW902KR0MZZO3-InlvnYD_Xqm0OqT/s640/code-copy-window-google-plus-embed-request.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><b>OPTIONAL:</b><br />If you have already got a plus+1 button anywhere on your blog, you can leave out the first part of the code, ie:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><!-- Place this tag in your head or just before your close body tag. --><br /><script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script></span></blockquote><div>However it doesn't hurt (except very slightly in terms of speed page-load speed) to leave it in.</div><br /><br /><h2>Customizing the code:</h2>The code that Google give you looks like this:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><!-- Place this tag in your head or just before your close body tag. --><br /><script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script><br /><!-- Place this tag where you want the widget to render. --><br /><div class="g-post" data-href="https://plus.google.com/116176459448466735273/posts/cFPSW8FgZ7U"></div></span></blockquote><br />Obviously there's not a lot you can change.<br /><br />But it is interesting to see that you don't actually need to use the G+ embed-code-generator; if you know the Google+ ID and the post ID, then you can easily construct the embed code.<br /><br />Also, provided you don't change Google's formatting of the G+ post, you are free to put the embed code inside a div statement, which lets you do certain formatting things.  For example, to centre-align the embedded post, use code like this:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><div style="clear: both; <b>margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;</b>"><br />PUT THE CODE FROM GOOGLE+ HERE<br /></div></span> </blockquote><br /><br /><h2>Embedded Google+ posts and the Blogger post-editor</h2>If you put the Google+ embed code into a blog post, the post-editor isn't able to show the Google+ item while you are editing the post.<br /><br />Instead, you see a gap like this:<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX6l80xSqVaJaEx6WsifP5-ABYZi1sQClFpfa7-0XkCkjQToaYf-d8NJZYpvP10UBSdZjYmfCsy4YQyx6A_THem7JUgxXIv9l7EKv_DlzE0pHQAlpEDyBvVfH8IvD7U3ZPyNyTWVy8uByw/s626/embedded-html-item-within-blogger-post-editor-shows-as-blank-space.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX6l80xSqVaJaEx6WsifP5-ABYZi1sQClFpfa7-0XkCkjQToaYf-d8NJZYpvP10UBSdZjYmfCsy4YQyx6A_THem7JUgxXIv9l7EKv_DlzE0pHQAlpEDyBvVfH8IvD7U3ZPyNyTWVy8uByw/s640/embedded-html-item-within-blogger-post-editor-shows-as-blank-space.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />And you simply have to be carefully not to accidentally delete the embedded item by typing in the gad or deleting it.   <br /><br />One way to make this easier is to temporarily put a border around the item's code while you're working on the post, using code like this<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><div style="clear: both; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; <b>border: 1px dotted black;</b>"></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">PUT THE CODE FROM GOOGLE+ HERE</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"></div></span> </blockquote><br /><br /><h2>What do your readers see</h2><br /><h3>Browser-based visitors</h3>People who see your blog or website in a regular browser will see an embedded Google Plus post looking like this:<br /><br /><div style="border: 1px dotted black; clear: both; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><!-- Place this tag where you want the widget to render. --><br /><div class="g-post" data-href="https://plus.google.com/116176459448466735273/posts/9Apb3WLT8bE"></div></div><br /><br />But what they see is not just an image: it's a fully-functional Google Plus post, where they can:<br /><ul><li>Plus-one the original post, and see the faces of (some) others who've +1'd it.</li><li>Follow or un-follow the poster themselves</li><li>Expand / Collapse the comments.</li><li>Add to the comments.</li><li>+1 individual comments</li></ul><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZWmE-4f-OGiuIhmkYeRDTkbOq13MqXIEEFkepFv-n6dUDiA2Oxl6w5_MTaCWHVw30u_xnwwJs6KK3tWYrv4dgSRTq0X_RGHqsGQeAKQy821MdKwiSe4iIykr2r1SYVYf1AujfI1nT3Nx2/s468/comment-on-or-plus-one-right-inside-embedded-google-plus-posts-inside-blogs.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZWmE-4f-OGiuIhmkYeRDTkbOq13MqXIEEFkepFv-n6dUDiA2Oxl6w5_MTaCWHVw30u_xnwwJs6KK3tWYrv4dgSRTq0X_RGHqsGQeAKQy821MdKwiSe4iIykr2r1SYVYf1AujfI1nT3Nx2/s640/comment-on-or-plus-one-right-inside-embedded-google-plus-posts-inside-blogs.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Most of these features are shown even if the read isn't logged in to a Google+ account themselves at the time:   when they go to use the feature, they simply have the Google+   "log in or sign up" screen shown to them in a new page.<br /><br /><br /><h3>Readers who subscribe to your blog using RSS</h3>The experience for people who follow your blog via RSS partly depends on what RSS reader they use.<br /><br />Someone who is using The Old Reader (my current preferred RSS reader) just sees a gap - and even the dotted line that I have around the above post above isn't showing.<br /><br /><br /><h3>Readers who follow-by-email</h3>Readers who follow your blog by email will post probably not see embedded Google+ posts. Again, I'll update this post in a day or two (after Feedburner has delivered my own subscription) with a report about how it looks in Thunderbird. Readers who use other email clients may have a different experience.<br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>What are the terms and conditions</h2>Every time you get Goolge+ post embed code, there is a reminder that "By embedding Google+ posts, you agree to our policies."<br /><br />It's possible that these rules will change over time. But you can read today's version <a href="https://www.google.com/intl/en-GB/+/policy/embedded-content.html" target="_blank">here</a>. <br /><br />And I'm no lawyer, this isn't legal advice - but my interpretation of the current version is:<br /><ul><li>You're not allowed to put Google+ posts on sites that break the Google+ User Content and Conduct Policy.   Eg pages that promote illegal things, have sexually explicit material, or includes malicious code.</li></ul><ul><li>You must not put Google+ content in ways that amount to bad behaviour, eg bullying or harassment.</li></ul><ul><li>You cannot put Google+ content inside advertisements "or for other commercial purposes" - this bit is interesting. I've put some Google+ content inside a blog that has advertisements - I wonder if this means I'm breaking the rules?</li></ul><ul><li>You cannot change the Google+ content or the stuff that Google+ puts around it.</li></ul><ul><li>You cannot try to find out the identity of users who comment on embedded Google+ content unless they agree to share their identity with you.</li></ul><ul><li>You cannot use, sell or give other people any data from embedded Google+ content, including any use of pixels, cookies,</li></ul><ul><li>You give Google permission to review and analyze your website by putting Google+ content on it.</li></ul><br />If Google find out that you've broken the rules, they may review and take action, including blocking you from using embedded Google+ content on your website.   (And I'd guess that it won't do good things for your site's search rating either.)<br /><br /><br /><h2>Final thoughts</h2>The elephant in the terms-and-conditions room is, of course, <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/copyright-blogs-and-bloggers.html">copyright</a>.   But for now I'm assuming that somewhere in Google+'s T&Cs they have a non-exclusive right to display things that their users post, and that this right extends to G+ content that is embedded.   Fingers crossed.<br /><br /><br /><b>What do you think:  would you be annoyed if I embedded your Google Plus post on my website? </b><br /><b><br /></b> <b>And is this a feature you will use on your blog?   </b><br /><b><br /></b> <br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles:</h2><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/04/linking-your-blog-to-social-networks.html">Ways of linking your blog and the social networks</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/putting-html-code-from-third-party-into.html">How to put 3rd-party HTML/Javascript into Blogger</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-now-has-pages-letting-us-set-up.html">Introducing Google+ Pages</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/03/centering-gadgets-on-on-your-blog.html">How to center items in Blogger</a>

How to embed a Google+ post into your blog post or website - and what happens when you do

This article explains how you can put a Google+ post (your own or someone else's) into your blog or website, provide the post was shared...

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What is Google Friend Connect

<b>This article describes Google Friend Connect, and how it can be used at the moment.</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-abaoT7eSvoU/UeFJQ9uk1EI/AAAAAAAAQJQ/Isurgq_ZRh0/s346/explaining-google-friend-connect-gadget-for-blogger.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-abaoT7eSvoU/UeFJQ9uk1EI/AAAAAAAAQJQ/Isurgq_ZRh0/s320/explaining-google-friend-connect-gadget-for-blogger.JPG" width="280" /></a></div>Google Friend Connect (GFC) was one of Google's earlier social-networking attempts, introduced in 2008.<br /><br />Originally (you can still see the full description <a href="http://www.google.com/friendconnect/home/overview" target="_blank">here</a>), GFC promised a range of social features that website-owners, including bloggers, could include on their sites. including:<br /><ul><li>Add GFC features to a website by installing snippets of HTML code onto the site, or or using the  API.</li><li>Users sign in to your website, using GFC with an existing account (e.g. Google, Yahoo, AOL)</li><li>Users can create or import profiles (e.g. Twitter), discover other users, and send private messages to each other.</li><li>Social gadgets, eg for posting comments and links, rating and reviews, that you could add to your site, which your visitor could use once they had logged in with GFC.</li><li>Website owners can set up questions to be asked when a user used GFC to join their site. The idea was for them to find out their member's interests - and that the information would be on the member's GFC profile.</li><li>Tools to create, manage and send website newsletters, which could be personalised, based on the answers that members gave when joining the community.</li><li>Matching AdSense ads on shown to users looking at your website site to the interests they had listed on their GFC profile.</li><li>Tools to look at your user's interests and your site's membership statistics.</li></ul>Effectively, Google Friend Connect was a group of tools, and some stuff in the background to make them work together:  The tools were for website owners who wanted to grow a community, and for "information consumers"  (that means people who read blogs and websites) who wanted to sign-up to their favourites sites.<br /><br />You can find out more about how they were supposed to work in this video - for as long as it's still available on YouTube:<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/NlKEWHcW5QE" width="500"></iframe><br /><br /><br /><h2>What happened</h2>Less than four years after the launch, Google <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/more-spring-cleaning-out-of-season.html" target="_blank">announced</a> that Friend Connect would be "<i>retired for all non-blogger sites in March 2012</i>".   Their announcement was light on details about what exactly this meant, but reading various blog posts it seems that:<br /><ul><li>The GFC dashboard, where users could manage their profiles was turned off</li><li>The site where website owners could get the code to install the GFG gadget  (and do other things like send newsletter or get statistics) was turned off.</li><li>Blogger users could still add teh GFC gadget to their blogs   (until the widget was removed in ... not sure exactly when, but it's not available now).</li><li>Updates from non-blogger sites were no longer sent through GFC.</li><li>Updates from Blogger sites were still send through GFC, and users could continue to get them through Google Reader (until it was turned off in July 2013) or the Blogger Dashboard.</li></ul><br />Google didn't provide give any options for moving GFC user or relationship data into any other tools.<br /><br /><h2>And why?</h2>Overall, my guess is that GFC didn't get enough users - or perhaps it just didn't give Google with enough of a platform for the social features that they wanted.  Possibly this was because:<br /><ul><li>The things which Google Friend Connect promised a number of privacy / security questions. I can't put my finger on exactly what worried me - but somehow it just sounds wrong to me..</li><li>People asked "Why would I want to share all my interests with someone just because I read their website? I can maybe understand it for a blog, but not for websites in general."</li></ul><br /><br /><h2>So why did anyone bother - and why is the GFC Followers gadget still on some blogs.</h2><br />Obviously there were problems with Google Friend Connect:   Personally, I never quite understood it, despite using Blogger long before GFC was introduced.   Even when I started <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Blogger-HAT</a> in late 2009, GFC just never stood out as something that was important-enough for me to understand.<br /><br />But some people did use it - and in particular enough Blogger users that Google decided not to turn it off for Blogger.<br /><br />I noticed that other people had a GFC gadget on their blogs, so I added one to <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Blogger-HAT</a> - as much as anything because I use it as a test-site to try out features to see how the might work on my other sites. <br /><br />Finally today, the penny dropped when I saw this a comment "<i>some people that they used their GFC/Blogger Dashboard in place of something like Google Reader</i>" <a href="http://jamigold.com/2012/02/goodbye-google-friend-connect-now-what/">here</a> while I was researching this article.   What it means is that <b>if you signed up to a blog/sites using the GFC-Follow gadget, then you can use the bottom part of the Blogger dashboard instead of an RSS reader</b>. <br /><br />Today, readers can still sign up for websites which have the Follow on Google Friend Connect gadget on them, but the gadget cannot be added to any new sites, at least not using Blogger's standard tools for <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/03/adding-gadget-to-your-blog-using.html">adding a gadget to your blog</a>.<br /><br />The Blogger-dashboard is still being updated with posts from Blogger-based sites that you've signed up to using GFC. <br /><br />Lots of people are speculating that sooner or later this will be turned off, but no one knows exactly when that will happen.<br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles:</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/03/adding-gadget-to-your-blog-using.html">How to add a gadget to your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/07/html-code-for-popular-gadgets-in.html">Where to find the HTML code for popular gadgets</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/04/linking-your-blog-to-social-networks.html">Linking your blog to the social networks</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/putting-badge-for-facebook-page-into.html">Putting a Facebook Page badge into Blogger</a>

What is Google Friend Connect

This article describes Google Friend Connect, and how it can be used at the moment. Google Friend Connect (GFC) was one of Google's earl...

Read more »