iLike a music discovery and sharing service has just integrated Google Friend Connect. You can now add a new ’social’ gadget from the official Google Friend Connect website to embed a iLike playlist that your members can add songs to.

To see this in action click here.

Let us know what you think of this new official gadget!

UPDATE: V0.7 is out - Gadget Width can now be adjusted from GFC Integration Settings.

SocialArrow.com has released a beta version of the first Google Friend Connect Plugin for Wordpress.

This is a nice first step to help self-hosted Wordpress blog owners easily add Google Friend Connect to their websites.

If you would like you can head here and see Social Arrow’s announcement.

I did notice that the compressed file available to download at Social Arrow will place the plugin in a duplicate folder if you use the easy uploader plugin to quickly add plugins to your self-hosted Wordpress Blog. So I have below a .zip file with the proper structure for quickly adding this plugin via the easy uploader tool.

Download v0.7 of the Google Friend Connect Wordpress Plugin

Installation Instructions
Step 1: Upload the gfcintegration folder to the plugin directory of Wordpress and Activate (or use the easy uploader tool to have have the .zip file automatically unzipped and added to your plugins folder.)
Step 2: Go to http://www.google.com/friendconnect/ and signup for your site if you haven’t already. Continue till you have generated the “Member Gadget” code in the fourth step of Googles setup. (Downloading the two files must be done manually through Googles setup in this version)
Step 3: Find the “Site ID” Number in you Member Gadget Code and put this in the Admin Settings of GFC Integration (The Site ID line should look like this in your code: site: ‘00865087787750565108′ - use the NUMBER ONLY for GFCI admin SiteId Setting)
Step 4: Add The Member and Wall Gadget wherever you’d like, you’re done! *NOTE* All widgets are fixed at 230px presently. Future release will allow alot of customization options.

Over at http://www.socialarrow.com they have been busy plugging away at a Wordpress Plugin that will make installing Google Friend Connect on a self hosted Wordpress site even easier than it is now.

They are targeting Monday December 22nd to release their initial version.

Check out http://www.socialarrow.com for more information on the development of this plugin.

Google Friend Connect has made it fairly simple for any website to add some social features through the members gadget, the wall, or even the comments gadget. So, what is next? Google will likely come out with more gadgets for all of us to use in the near future, but I think the next step is not in gadgets or widgets but in adding some core functionality to Google Friend Connect. Google still needs to do a few things before 3rd party developers can really dive into Google Friend Connect.

So what do I think Google should be working on with Friend Connect right now?

- A well documented method to use Google Friend Connect for website authentication. (so that this can be utilized for other well established web applications like PHP-Nuke or even PhpBB.) Here is one developers experience with trying to get authentication to work….

- Social interaction with site members and friends. Something like private messaging that is not site specific but associated with our account.

- Profile integration of all of the various login methods. I want to be able to login via my Google Account, OpenID, or even my Yahoo ID but have all of them be associated with one specific profile. I am one person with multiple methods of logging in and it would be nice to see Google Friend Connect allow me to ‘connect’ my logins to my one identity.
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Once we get some of these core functions I would expect to see a lot of 3rd party development. Google Friend Connect is more than just some widgets or gadgets. But we need to take these first steps so that it can truly take off and be more than just a members list and a commenting form.

Let us know what you think should happen next for Google Friend Connect in the comments section to the right of this blog post or in the Join the Discussion area where we have our ‘Wall’ installed.

Friend Connectified is your online resource to keep up with Google Friend Connect. With Google Friend Connect you can quickly add interactive features to your website or blog. We anticipate developers creating some very unique and innovative gadgets for Google Friend Connect enabled websites. At friendconnectified.com we will do our best to keep you up to speed on 3rd party gadgets that become available. Innovative ideas on how to use Google Friend Connect and how to implement all of this into your very own website.

This site started as simply a directory of Google Friend Connect enabled sites, so if you are looking for the directory it is still alive and doing well. (You can click on the Directory icon near the top of the site) At the time of this writing we have almost 200 sites in our directory and 200 members who have joined our network. So we are excited about how this site can provide a a valuable service to the Google Friend Connect community.

This is a work in progress, so expect enhancements as we move forward into a more social internet thanks to Google Friend Connect.