[1] Similar to Facebook Platform and MySpaceID, it allowed users to build a profile to share and update information through messaging, photographs and video content via third-party sites which acted as a host for profile sharing and social exchanges.

[2] Google Friend Connect used open standards such as OpenID, OAuth and OpenSocial allowing usage with no registration, once authenticated they could use their existing profile and access a social graph when posting messages, the social graph feature allowed a user to post a message on a third-party site, but allowed viewing access only to other authorized "friends" contained within the user's chosen social graph.

[4] The Google Friend Connect API allowed website owners to query the content of user profiles, and provide website content from Hi5, Orkut, Plaxo, MySpace, Google Talk, Netlog, Twitter, and YouTube, along with ads tailored to the specific user via HTML/JavaScript "gadgets" into their pages These "gadgets" included Social Bar, Comments, Ratings and Reviews, Featured Content, Interests' Poll, Recommendations, Events and Games.

[6] As of 2011, it was estimated that approximately 200,000 websites used Google Friend Connect, with 2889 of them in the top million visited sites on the Internet.

[11] On November 23, 2011, Google's Senior Vice President of Operations Urs Hölzle announced that Friend Connect would be retired for all non-Blogger sites by March 1, 2012, and encouraged the now defunct Google+'s pages and off-site Page badges as the preferred alternative.

[13] In 2009 Google Friend Connect altered its installation process no longer required the need for any file uploads within days of Facebook doing the same.