ReadWriteWeb

As much attention as social media marketing is commanding these days, it's nowhere close to replacing good old fashioned email as a means to reach current and potential customers. With so many services out there for building and deploying eNewsletters, it's not always easy to know which one is right for your small business.

Google just announced a number of major updates to Google Friend Connect (GFC), the company's set of tools that can bring social networking tools and widgets to any site. Today, Google is extending this functionality with a new 'Interests' section that helps a site's visitors to get to know each other, a newsletter tool and gadgets that display personalized content recommendations. Google now also allows site owners to connect this data they gather from their users with their AdSense accounts to display more highly targeted ads.