Embedding profile data, social graphs and content
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This new Religion of Bringing Social to Software is based upon the notion of embedding one’s profile data, social graph and content into external sites.
The distributed open mesh can be built with this sort of religion.
We’ve had that ability in PeopleAggregator for almost two years now and it shows that we’ve architected and designed PeopleAggregator for the future. As these ‘tentacles’ are deployed around the web - I believe that it strikes a balance between the lock-in tendencies and instincts of vendors - who think that this is the only way to ‘lock-in’ their customers - versus - the free, open nature of the distributed open mesh.
This balancing act must also be taken into context with the other goings on of the open mesh, namely the Live Web, and whether or not its important to decentralize Twitter.
The DataPortability.org effort points to a world where end-users can control their data. This is an essential ingredient to the open mesh.
A dashboard onto one’s ‘digital lifestyle’ is also inevitable. Continued openness from the big players will lead to many different techniques of semi-openness.
But at the end of the day - it appears that a major foundation of this open religion - will be embedding one’s profile data, social graph and content into widgets (or other mechanisms) and plopping those widgets into OTHER web sites and web services.
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Sort of like what I have here. This is coming right out of my PeopleAggregator.net account.
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You’ll notice About Me (otherwise known as profile data). This links to my PeopleAggregator page. I also have a link to my Flickr account. I could have added my Twitter or Friendfeed accounts as well.
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You’ll notice My Friends (otherwise known as social graph). This is my internal social graph.
I could also have displayed my friends from MySpace. Facebook, YouTube, Flickr as well.
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You’ll notice my list of Groups. This could also include the various networks I am a member of - in the PeopleAggregator meta-network. I could also list associated Groups or other Groups I’m a member of - on different networks. This is where aggregating Groups comes in.
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I didn’t put up my latest Blog posts (but I could have.)
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You’ll notice My Photos (sort of like our own Flickr Zeitgeist.)
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You’ll notice My Videos (but I also could have put up Audio as well).
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This widget demontrates what each of the MySpace, Facebook and Google embedded mechanisms will do.
The trick is gonna be “what can you do with these imported ‘widgets’ once they’re there in your destination site.