Marc's Voice

The social networking silver bullet

I don’t know how I missed this (probably cause I was crazy busy) post by Ebrahim Ezzy on Richard MacManus’ Read/Write blog.

The post is called Social networking: Time for a silver bullet - and it brings up a few interesting points.

But first a few minor corrections and comments on Ebrahim’s post:

- Indeed PeopleAggregator can do all the coolio things Eb talks about (Identity Hub, meta-network, OEM model, import/export), but (surprise surprise) it also does all the things that are used to describe Multiply - as well.  Just wanna make sure folks grok that.  We’re a full featured SNS - for sure - with the same kind of privacy that Multiply and Facebook offer.

- Eb doesn’t mention Metcalfe’s Law of eh Nework effect - but I think most of us grok that intuitively. It really IS mroe fun when more people are around.   But 10,000,000s is overdoing it a bit.  I predict that most networks will settle into a 10,000-100,000 range of membership - and no one will notice the difference.

- Eb definitely needs to credit Ryze - as the first of this new era. Jonthan Abrams himself claimed he was gonna rip them off.  And he did.  Then he patented it.

- clearly folks ARE getting tired of the same old experience - and that’s why we’re seeing this migratory path out of Friendster and MySpace - out there kicking tired, trying new things out.  But at tyhe end of teh day - Eb is right - it’s all about niches and vertical markets. Finding a particular CONTEXT for a nework.  That’s what counts.

- finally we’re proud to be put into the same article as imeem, multiply, LinkedIn, etc. - but I also think that Ning should be in there as well.  They’ve got a unique model - which fits well into this world view.  As do the dasboard vendors: NetVibes and Pageflakes - and folks like that.

OK - now that we’ve gotten those correctons, caveats and issues aside - lets get onto Eb’s basic premise - the ’silver bullet’:

The value of social networking, in general, is diminished with each new service entering the field. There’s a need for some standards in the social networking space, as it is difficult to maintain profiles at each social network.

Many of the fun-seeking Myspacers may actually be the very same respectful businessmen at LinkedIn, just with an adjusted profile (and maybe an adjusted name to go with it). So what we require is a system that connects all social networks - that a user is a member of - and shares basic functionalities. This would allow users to choose a system with the features and approach that best suits them.

Or better yet, instead of being confined to one giant centralized social network, we should move to social groupwares - like CollectiveX and PeopleAggregator - that enable users to build their own meta social networks, based on their passions and interests. This way, numerous social networks will proliferate - each with unique form and function.

What can I say?

Right on dude - let’s do it.  Let smake sure that folks can have ONE master profile - which then can be ’shared’, federated, collaborated with, subscribed to, showcased, highlighted, included or excluded - from everywhere else.

1. OpenID2 can do the authentication

2. XFN/hCard or FOAF can store the data

3. so now what we need are APIs for sending messages, establishing relationships, creating or joining groups and posting content.

Those three layers of the opens standards ’stack’ are what we should be building together.

We’ve (along with Lucas Gonze) have proposed a content routing and prefered tool scheme - called RedirectThis and we’ve also created a web service to enable folks to define where all their multiple detsinations - are.  That’s called OutputThis.

Anybody else got something to help create this ’silver bullet’?