A few years back, I found myself wishing for a means to export Facebook information into my Gmail account. I had discovered connections on Facebook that I hadn’t been in touch with for years, but had happily reconnected with, and I wanted to be able to organize the information via my email client of choice. Back then, however, there was no meaningful way to accomplish this task – the best option I found was a spammy third party application that I ultimately abandoned.

Flash forward to 2011 and enter, Friends to Gmail. This web application has a simple function  – it converts your Facebook friends list into a CSV file that can be uploaded to Gmail. It doesn’t include contact info yet, but you can get birthdays, hometown, work history, etc. So, ifor example, you can get your friends’ birthdays on your G-Cal – my calendar of choice. The developer, Dan Loewenhurz, is looking into ways to get the actual email information out of Facebook for import, so stay tuned.

If you are looking to use the G-Universe as your CMS system, Friends to Gmail is a nice place to start.

Thanks a bunch, Mr. Loewenhurz.