Introducing Google+ Sign-In
This week Google Developers announced the release of Google+ Sign-In, their equivalent of Facebook Connect. Like Facebook Connect, Google+ Sign-In allows users with existing Google accounts to log in with their profiles to interact with your website. For example, you might want to choose to have people connecting Google+ with your website to allow users to:
- Share content to their networks
- Log in to make a purchase
- Log in to interact with your site
- Create a profile in one step
So, what’s the difference between Google+ Sign-In and Facebook Connect?
Google+ are very explicit with how different they are from Facebook, without even one mention of their competition. While Facebook Connect is a one button send-to-all type of sharing, Google+ understands that people have different social circles and not all of your connections will want to see every piece of content you share. Unveiling this feature, Google declares: sharing is selective; spraying is just spam. See how other websites are using Google+ Sign-In for their website:
Advantages of Google+ Sign-In
Besides the selective sharing feature, users are able to edit the level of access a third party site has with your personal information. You may also edit the level of privacy about your activity to circles of your choice – or keep your activity private altogether.
What’s really cool about Google+ is its compatibility with mobile devices. You can install a third party app straight from your desktop without having your phone on you. This is also a big advantage for webmasters who have a significant mobile demographic, allowing content to easily be shared and engaged with by those on the move.
Disadvantages of Google+ Sign-In
Despite Google+ having over 400 million members, only a quarter of those users are active. 100 million active users is still a significant amount of users, but if you compare it with Facebook’s 900 million active users, it doesn’t make things look promising for the social networking.
For more details on Google+ Sign-In, visit the Google Developers blog.