Friend Connect, Google's popular online service that enables Internet users to, well, connect with friends on different web sites by standardizing the look of social applications and content, has added more features, IDG News Service's Juan Carlos Perez reports:

Google's Friend Connect has expanded its roster of social networking and social media services that participating Web publishers can add to their sites.

Friend Connect now has a new section called "Interests" that lets Web publishers pose questions to visitors who register with their sites about their likes, hobbies and preferences.

Other new features allow web publishers to 1) offer people the ability to use their site profiles to send private messages, and 2) fine-tune their sites by aggregating and analyzing data that users make public about their interests, Perez writes.

Launched in May 2008, Friend Connect is now deployed by 9 million web sites worldwide and is available in 59 languages.