Marc's Voice

Is Google trying to control user’s data in OpenSocial?

In response to Dave Winer stating that he doesn’t think Google’s OpenSocial approach will work let me point out that Google is indeed not trying to control end-user’s data.

They are leaving that to each and every social network ‘host’ that supports and participates in this ‘open community’ (which is how it has ot be IMHO.)  That’s where the user accountd area nd the user’s data and social graphs.  Not in Google.

Google is simply facilitating the inter-connection of hosts (social networks) with developers (applications) with their OpenSocial APIs.  I believe.

Unless anyone can tell me anything different?

OpenSocial details coming out

Well well well - the wars have begun. Just as Facebook announces SocialAds - Google moves up their launch date and announces (kind of) OpenSocial.

Originally slated for Nov. 5th, Facebook’s attack on Google’s family jewels must (obviously) have prompted them to start to sneak details of OpenSocial - the APIs I was disclosed on in Sept. But now that Mr. Arrington and the NYTimes have disclosed it - I guess I can talk about it.

Yes?

Well whatever - who cares about embargoes when the world is quickly changing underneath our feet.

Just when you thought that Facebook had redefined what a platform was - Google comes in and cleanly and simply defines a distributed universe based upon THEIR APIs.

Now hopefully all of you know what I”m going to say next.

Lets not stop there! Lets get a whole BUNCH of these kind of APIs and then platforms like PeopleAggregator can support them ALL!

Mr. Yang - listening? Mr. Horowitz - gonna one up Google AND Facebook now? How is Yahoo gonna come off - in this new universe? And I bet my friend Dare Obasanjo is meeting with Mr. Ballmer et al right now - explaining this new world order to the original original lock-in platform - as we speak.

Its great to see Ning, Xing, Plaxo, LinkedIn and hi5 on the list - though I’m not sure who Viadeo is - and what in the world Oracle is doing there - but who cares! The more the merrier! Now we just need MySpace and Bebo and along with Orkut - we’re really starting to rock!

In case you don’t quite grok what Arrington has disclosed let me explain it like this:

- Facebook’s platform defined a way for app developers - like Slide, Flixter, iLike and RockYou to build apps on top of a new kind of ‘toolbox (using the Mac analogy.) Facebook apps had immediate access to one’s list of friends and app developers could use the Facebook ‘language’ to send out invites, send RSVPs, add apps to a menu bar and all sorts of other coolio ’social things’. This radicaly altered the landscape of developer/platform functionality. But the problem was that Facebook’s onerous TOS (terms of service) prevented app developers from doing anything OUTSIDE of Facebook’s universe and even claimed that user’s data was called ‘Facebook data’ (sic!)

- So we complained and even created a ‘Bill of Rights for Users of Social Media‘ . Not only is that social graph data owned by the USER and not Facebook, but Facebook was really just acting smart and redefining a new kind of lock-in platform. Well smart - but not smart enough.

- So now Google stands back - and remember they’re doing this from a position of strength. They have Orkut and they have a $700 share price, gobs of cash and a world class organization. So they feel confidant that they can take on Facebook and completely upset the apple cart. This of course is great for us. What Google has done is define Hosts (which are the social networks which support the APIs) and Developers are the folks who create the applications.

- Hosts support the APIs and Developers build apps. They can utilize ‘a canvas’ which is a page inside the social network or use their own dam pages. Mix and Match - do what you want. What sits in the middle are a set of open APIs to facilitate the same kind of functionality that Facebook provides, but in a truly open way.

- One could argue about other approaches to openness. Brad and David talk about a shared database of social graph data. Dick Hardt and Sxip has an attribute exchange he contributed to the OpenID2 spec. SixApart just released a Relationship Update Stream. And Google’s APIs just expand the vocabulary of openness even further! These APIs will be scrutinized, critqued, expanded upon and mimiced. And maybe they’ll be NEW kinds of APIs or techniques to come! I say COOLIO! Bring it on!

. Google’s approach dictates no Google ads, no lock-in (except to the APIs themselves) and most importantly - no onerous TOS, rules or policies that limit how app developers can use these APIs. What you have is a new kind of ethereal platform - a platform which we all can define to use in any way we see fit. That’s the nature of the web and that’s what Jeff Huber talked about at his “The Web is the Platform” speech at Web 2.0.

- So what’s next? Well we have Microsoft opening up their Microsoft Live APIs and providing access to ALL these straight, normal Windows users. We (hopefully) will have Yahoo doing the same for MyYahoo and their 150M strong daily visitors. Add in Orkut, Friendster, hi5, LinkedIn and Video and you quickly see that Facebook ain’t in no great position of strength anymore.

- But that’s OK - cause we all know that Facebook now has to react and change their onerous TOS and play along or get shunted out of the game.

- What it all leads to is a world of distributed, inter-connected social networking and blogging. Just what I’ve been dreaming of - for years!

Man oh Man - this is getting fun.

For the record - we at Broadband Mechanics will be supporting ALL THIS STUFF and making it available to OUR customers. Though right now I’m in NYC making those customers happy and actually building systems using PeopleAggregator.

So there you have it - the future has arrived and it rocks. Thank you Google (and I have to admit I never thought I’d be saying that.) Now what about Apple?

And a Maka-Maka to you

The best part of not being disclosed on some upcoming Google social network is that you can wildly speculate without breaking any sort of covenant.

So I have no idea what Maka-Maka is - but it sounds totally coolio!

The challenge of Google’s open APIs for social networking is that no one uses Orkut anymore. But hey - start a NEW social network and they’ll all come - right? Well that’s what Yahoo is trying.

But will it work for Google?

Sure if you have a whole suite of productivity apps - which have opened up and are “bringing social to software!”

This whole “social graph” operating system strata idea is taking hold.

I can’t wait!

Blogging from NYC Oct. ‘07

I’ll be home for Halloween but in the mean time I’m sitting in a hotel room, watching the World Series and cleaning out my aggregator starred items.

We held a standing room only ad hoc sessions at PICNIC in Amsterdam at the end of September on ‘open social networking’.  Here’s a video summarizing the session by Robert Gaal. 

Rumors have it - and Brad Horowitz more or less confirms it - that Yahoo is opening up in a big way.  I just hope it’s more than JUST Brad’s group that’s opening up!

Dan Farber has a great report from the SNAP conference and what a Facebook exec said about ‘the sanctity of the Facebook social graph’ - must read. 

Got to hang with Doc, Britt Blaser, Dean Landsman and R0mmel last night at Britt’s birthday bash.  Great to be with peeps who are older than me - so I’m not always the oldest dude in the room.  Brought Paolo and David Levitt along.

Social Graph-iti

Julian Bond has a good answer to “why a vendor should open up?” He uses LinkedIn as an example of a vendor who lets their users export their data via CSV.  Now LinkedIn could make it easier and support and even LEAD into some new standards - but something is better than nothing - I always say!

Social Networking - a lock-in strategy?

Some Microsoft game/creation tool limits what you can do with the tool - sounds like some old guard Microsofters are still there.

SIME 07 Stockholm, Nov. 14-15

How Microsoft got their Passport afterall

Ben Werdmuller thinks Facebook is a Red Herring

Dave Winer’s FriendFeed

Digital Curation - the opposite of social media 

User centric Identity interop - in Barcelona

Open Source VC funding is not drying up

Digital Standard,  WeeWorld (now apparently a world), Userplane Feeds, EasySponsorship,

Support the EFF

Channelling Jeff Jarvis

I read with joy and exultation Jeff Jarvis’ post on Yahoo as a Platform. It seems like Jeff and myself are totally in agreement when it comes to what open platforms are all about.

Jeff has been asking Yahoo to open up and not just copy Facebook’s ‘lock-in’ strategy - which only exposes the user’s social graphs internally. This is exactly what Google is going after - Facebook’s Achilles heel! And Lord knows what MySpace and Friendster’s platform will do about this key issue! At first glance it looks like they’re literally just copying Facebook.

How stupid do these platforms think we are? Don’t they know that users are starting to clue in that THEY own their own data - NOT the platform! Mr. Zuckerberg hides behind the excuse that they’re protecting the privacy of their users - but calling this data FACEBOOK data (in their onerous TOS) exposes the truth of how they really think that all this user data is THEIR data. Well sorry Mark - it ain’t.

So now the question is “how smart is Jerry Yang and his fellow Yahoosters” on this matter? We’re all hoping that Google won’t make the same mistake!

Jeff and I have been trying to get together for six months- every time I get to NYC (like I am right now.) Jeff wanted to rap about the identity space and open standards - but its clear we need to talk about other ’spheres as well.

The blogosphere could use an open standard - sort of like an open MyBlogLog for sharing friends, forming groups and acting like a cross platform blogroll. I really think we also need a universal ‘BlogThis’ button and a way for one to easily route to all their blogging tool destinations (which we call it OutputThis.).

Media standards are far from resolved - with everyone flocking to Flash video (FLV) ever since YouTube showed how seamless video should behave. But we all know that my former company took my idea of a universal multimedia player and turned it into the epitome of closed, proprietary platform. How would the world be different if Flash was an open platform?

Wouldn’t it be coolio if we had an open event-o-sphere, sort of like a shared database of events - eg. EVDB + UpComing + zVents?

I’m really excited about shared reviews and needless to say the new SixApart Relationship Update Stream seems pretty coolio as well.

APML is looming, as are oAuth and there are now demos of the OpenID 2.0 Attribute Exchange.

But what makes it all real is when vendors open up the entire platform as Facebook has done and what MySpace and Friendster now say they’re gonna do. Nov. 5th is a magic date for Google and Microsoft has shown they’re willing to change and offer access to internal Windows Live Contacts user data.

But as Jeff’s post surmises - what about Yahoo? They are the inventors of the personalized web with MyYahoo. But why can’t we access all that MyYahoo data via APIs?

Where’s the Yahoo identity layer? Where’s the access to Yahoo’s social graph data (ooops they just turned off Y!360!) that can be shared between all my Yahoo services and applications - and where are the APIs into that layer?

Isn’t this what Randy Farmer is supposed to be doing?

What is Brad Horowitz doing anyway - besides partying n Hawaii? Maybe Brad will mention it to Jerry - when they’re out golfing or eating roasted whole pig at the Luau - “gee maybe it’s time to open up MyYahoo?”

Yo dudes - GET IT TOGETHER!

Certainly Jeff Jarvis are I think they should. I bet others agree - as well.

What about Roger McNamee?

There are reports that Facebook is about to get another $500M from some NYC headge funds (I’m here in NYC right now.)

But what about the hippie hedge fund dude - Roger McNamee and his Elevation Partners fund? I highly recommend that Facebook take money from Roger not because I’m getting a kickback, but because Roger knows how to party, has his own band (and an old one - too) and - hangs out with Bono.

Thse issues are important to young entrepreneur billionaires - cause they have t live life and without partying - well what sort of life is that?

What! Only $240M - what a rip off!

Now that the deal has closed - we can look back and realize that $240M is just interest on Microsoft’s T-bills.

What happened to the $500M deal?

Chewing through October and blogging it

Caught a cold at Web 2.0 - shaking the wrong people’s hands - evidently.

Meanwhile…..

I just bought a webcam to fully test seesmic.

Always remember - humans are migratory beasts.

The season of social network platforms

I agree with Om - that home networks will need LOTS of bandwidth for the future. Multiple lines will be coming in - so 100Mbps may not be enough.

Dell is changing. They’re selling ‘puters at Staples and they’re actually producing high quality devices (and have turned Jeff Jarvis around.)

Social Networking Panel Discussion at Zeitgeist ‘07

Don Park discovers Flex. I wonder if he’s ever played with Laszlo?

Beppe exposes the Levi-Prodi law. Ah Italia!

Orkut is #5 and is about to be opened up

Cisco is finally rolling out the big PR guns for Five Across 

Thumbplay, Friendvox, Otetsudai Networks, Open Library, TapeItOfftheInternet,

Why is it that Megan McCarthy is so interested in Ron Jeremy? Hmmmmmm

This baby actually looks like Maryam

His nose, his eyes - its clear who his Mom is.

And he’s not a thing - but a bubbling baby boy.

Goo goo Gah Gah 

Getting ready for a big November - and blogging about it

November is gonna be a big month for Broadband Mechanics. The network we did for the Future of Business Media conference is live. We’re hiring, we have three large sites going live in November and///

Well lets just say that the world is starting to “bring social to software” and that’s what we can do - now - for anybody else.

Meanwhile….

Bringtheloveback

The Relationship Update Stream got announced by SixApart. This was part of the speech by Brad Fitzpatrick and David Recordan a Web 2.0.

Dare Obasanjo goes over how to make DLAs (digital lifestyle aggregators) more relevant. And talks about how the web is the platform.

“What RSS did for content, gadgets are doing for applications”

Special thanks to Paul Boutin for a really well done post on translating into English all the buzzword du jour mentality we’ve got reverberating in our business. He actually explained our platform correctly! Paul actually called me to clarify what the hell it was I’m talking about - since his boss Owen Thomas got it wrong last time.

Tim O’Reilly’s post on social networking operating systems is the latest of posts to start to grok what’s going on. That’s why what Google does is so important - as it’ll raise the litmus one step higher in what ‘being open’ really means.

YES - I want a SNS for my apartment building - but don’t stop there - it has to be a full DLA!

Congrats to Kim Cameron and JanRain on getting OpenID to be Cardspace compliant. Maybe now they can get back to work on the php libraries for the Attribute Exchange.

How to evaluate the MySpace (and other) platforms

Liz Gannes just calls me Question. Hey Liz! Remember to spell the name right!

It was great to see Ted Leonsis this week. He not only got to visit Facebook but he also made a presentation to Web 2.0 on RevolutionMoney.

Social Networking is a feature, not a destination

We’re all interested in hearing more details on the Entertainment Operating System from Cisco. Great name.

I agree with Dare - if you fight the web, you will lose.

Listas, InterviewUp, Casero, Tripit, Popfly, Platial+Frappr, Social.FM, Quartics, APML

i gotta meet this guy Danny Meyer