Normally I would just post this in my del.icio.us links, but Dan Farber of ZDNet has a very good blog entry about the dilemma that Facebook faces in light of the Google-led OpenSocial effort announced last week: “Facebook’s dilemma: To be OpenSocial or not to be.” He says, in part,
If Facebook has a significant competitive edge because of its pioneering development platform, then adopting OpenSocial makes less sense. And on a practical front, giving Google de facto control of the core APIs for user profiles, friends and activity streams will be a cause for discomfort. On the other hand, so far Google is taking input from partners (who are also competitors) as the API specs have evolved.
We’re very early in the development of social networks, but some fundamental questions about openness are being asked and strategic decisions being made. It’s not even about proprietary vs. open, it’s about “reasonably open” vs. “even more open.” This is progress on the openness front. As I’ve remarked before, it’s good for people to argue about who is more open.
It’s clear that Facebook is growing rapidly. My first impression when I visit some of the other social networks is that hardly anyone I know is there. I have not been active on Facebook very long and feel I’m just trying it out, but it’s certainly a fun experiment. It wasn’t hard to quickly find over a hundred other people with whom I worked and otherwise spent life on the service.
Do you use Facebook? Why? What would it take for you to switch?
Should there even be separate social networks if the data gets federated into various trusted information storage providers? Couldn’t I just role my own with handy front end builders? That is, shouldn’t it be possible for my home “Facebook” page to be on sutor.com via a little coding of some mashups?
Will ads drive these services? If I can turn ads off, I usually do so. Will this tank the business model of the pure social network companies if many others do the same?
Bob, you would find a LOT of people you know on LinkedIn. IBM has a sizable population there. And it’s more professionally-oriented than Facebook. (There’s no definition to say you know someone because “we hooked up,” for instance.)
Nathan, right you are, and I should have mentioned that. That said, I usually go to LinkedIn to accept invitations and then move on to something else, somewhere else.
Be more creative about business models.
A business model idea, a small subscription fee paid by the user/customer instead of using ads.
I think it won’t be long before we get a ‘Facebook Virus’ or ‘OpenSocial Virus’, rather like the runaway self-replicating rings which affected SecondLife a while back (or the runaway electronic Christmas Cards which jammed up the IBM internal network in about 1983).
It will probably have the effect of mashing up everybody’s profiles, and contact lists; and manufacturing the odd few million extra fictitious people. It’s likely that the APIs will be open enough to allow that to be done; and it will be done, most likely by someone playing, probably with no malicious intent. Like a learner-driver accidentally causing a highway pile-up.
So, keep a backup of whatever you submit; be ready to reload from backup; and don’t submit anything you’d like to stay private. With those ground rules, people should be OK.
Business model ? Well, people sell all sorts of things for all sorts of prices.