Land grabs, business models and open standards
In the chess game that’s evolving in front of our eyes, I’ve waited several years to be able to now clarify our strategy and approach to success.
Non-lock-in is today’s lock-in. Or said another way “non-lock-in is today’s new black”.
Many of the large social networks are operating by Web 1.0 principles - “get in as many people as possible and monetize them.” That’s all fine for the founders and investors - but at the end of the day - end-users need to control their data, content and profiles and move them wherever they wish.
As Dan Farber says in his recent post ‘Social Networking Cha Cha Cha and the land grab’
Some land barons say they are open to the idea of a Web without boundaries, but the business reality is collecting as many users as possible and keep them fenced in, grazing on each other’s social media. APIs and emerging standards, such as microformats and OpenID, will enable more semi-permeable boundaries, but for the foreseeable future users will be not be able to engage in the network of social networks.
OpenID is a way to authenticate users, and microformats is one form of a data format - but it’s not enough. FOAF should probably also be included in the mix - but the technical facts are that this problem gets solved by an entire stack of solutions - all leading to the idealistic world we all want.
So here’s a quick overview of this solution stack:
Just to be clear - I am often asked: “why would a large company support the ability for their end-users to move their data out of the system?” My answer has been and will always be: “because if they don’t, they’ll eventually lose out to the networks which do.”Facebook knows that - and that’s why they opened up their APIs (though their TOS is still too onerous.) The folks at Yahoo (like Brad Horowitz and Ash Patel) know that. The folks at AOL know that - too. Anyone focused on giving end-users what they want - knows this.
I just hope that Craigslist figures this out, MySpace, Microsoft and the other big players. I doubt that Google will ever embrace this open web - but hey - they’re all billionaires - so who are we to tell them anything?
But seriously folks - its incredible that this vision is finally taking off - it’s just taken some time. The advancements we’re seeeing in OpenID and OpenID2 are leading the way!
Our model (at Broadband Mechanics) is to enable this open web, make sure as many networks can inter-connect together - and make money from designing, building, hosting, supporting and maintaining these networks. There’s plenty of money out there - when ‘all software should be social’. People oriented software is the future - and there WON’T be just one or even ten social networks for people to socialize in.
Socializing is taking on many forms and flavors and there are some underlying structures and actions which can be a common bond between us. OpenID, XFN and FOAF are the beginnings of that common bond - but we’re not done yet.
Now it’s time to show some interop and movement - so these migratory beasts can take their nuts and twigs from one nest to another.
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