Google plans to release on Monday a preview version of Friend Connect, a service designed to let Web publishers add social networking features to their sites, the company said.

Friend Connect, which will be available on the Web at some point on Monday, lets publishers add social networking applications by inserting "a snippet of code" in their sites, Google said.

Thus, sites will be able to add features like user registration, friends invitation and message posting, as well as allow visitors to interact with existing friends in social networking sites like Facebook, Google's Orkut, Plaxo and Hi5, according to Google.

Google's move is yet another in a recent string of data-portability efforts at tearing down the walls in social networking sites and letting users export the data and content they have stored in those sites. MySpace and Facebook took steps in that direction with announcements last week.

As the popularity of social networks keeps rising and people set up multiple profiles in such sites, they are demanding the ability to carry their data, content and connections from one site to another, so that they don't have to reenter all that information again.

At the same time, Web publishers of all sizes are eager to latch on to the craze by adding social networking features to their sites, now that a critical mass of Internet users have embraced the interaction and sharing that social applications provide.

Google will hold a press conference at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time to discuss Friend Connect in more detail.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

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