---
title: 'First Portland Google Friend Connect sighting? Mapdango may be it'
date: '2008-06-12T22:00:19-07:00'
type: post
word_count: 347
char_count: 2236
tokens: 452
categories:
  - Friendconnect
  - Google
  - Mapdango
  - Oregon
  - Portland
tags:
  - connect
  - Friend
  - Friendconnect
  - Google
  - Mapdango
  - Oregon
  - Portland
---

# First Portland Google Friend Connect sighting? Mapdango may be it

Earlier today, Portland’s [Marshall Kirkpatrick](http://twitter.com/marshallk "Marshall Kirkpatrick on Twitter") had [a post on the first Google Friend Connect widget](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_friend_connect_spotted.php "Google Friend Connect Spotted") observed outside of captivity, in its natural habitat:

> Prominent Israeli tech blogger [Orli Yakuel](http://blog.go2web20.net/) has just installed the first [Google Friend Connect](http://www.google.com/friendconnect/) widget we’ve seen yet in the wild.

Read the post. Found it interesting. Filed it away.

Then, this evening, I’m reading through my feeds and what do I see? [Portland-based Mapdango has added Google Friend Connect](http://www.cartosoft.com/node/18 "Portland's Mapdango adds Google Friend Connect"):

> [Friend Connect](http://www.google.com/friendconnect) provides a simple, effective, and fairly universal way of adding social networking features to a web site. Although Friend Connect is still in private beta, [mapdango](http://www.mapdango.com/) is one of the lucky sites that now includes Friend Connect functionality (it took a little cajoling) 🙂

**Now, that’s exciting!**

So, what’s Google Friend Connect? Well, it’s a social-networking widget. The most readily available analogy I have is “the [Yahoo! MyBlogLog](http://mybloglog.com "MyBlogLog") widget on steroids.” [Or, as Google says](http://www.google.com/friendconnect/ "Google Friend Connect"):

> Google Friend Connect lets you grow traffic by easily adding social features to your website. With just a few snippets of code, you get more people engaging more deeply with your site.

Now granted, Google Friend Connect is not without its shortcomings—or [its detractors](http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=111 "On Privacy "). But let’s suspend disbelief for a brief moment, disregard that silly “privacy” thing, and revel in how cool it is to see a Portland company among the very fist to get the chance to test-drive this technology.

As always, I’m very interested to see where this goes.

To try Google Friend Connect for yourself, visit [Mapdango](http://www.mapdango.com/ "Mapdango").