Why We Need an OpenID of Social Networks

I’m disappointed. Reading the Yahoo! Life news over at Techcrunch makes me believe that rather than innovating, the top companies are all trying to fight the last battle. We have seen this before, be a better Google, beat MySpace, try to beat Facebook or be the new Facebook.

This is the Hollywood technique. When they lack ideas or do not want to take risks they remake the last blockbuster and stick to the winning formula. While Microsoft can have a home-run creating their equivalent of sequels with new versions of Windows and Office still driving profitability, other companies such as Google and Yahoo! seem to be taking the bandwagon formula.

Why do these companies all think they need their own Social Network solution? Perhaps I am strange but I really do not want to join another service. I have spent the last couple of months trimming down my online activity. It’s going to take something really compelling to get me to sign up to and participate on a new one. It also seems that Yahoo! Mail is central to this new plan. I have no intention of using a further email service when I have perfectly serviceable email already thankyouverymuch.

It’s clear what the attraction is. Not only do they want the traffic and eyeballs (how 1999), but they see an opportunity to centralize all that lovely personal data. Facebook dropped the ball, perhaps they can run with it? Sorry, but I think the backlash goes further than just Facebook. It seems from my circle of contacts (um, social “graph”) that those of us concerned with productivity are asking “What has social media done for me lately?”.

Look at what happens when you join a social network. You go adding friends, and get a buzz from other people adding you. Then you go looking for things to do. They are solutions waiting for a problem! Just like Second Life, I think the reason I do not find Facebook compelling is they are a venue without a purpose. World of Warcraft is a virtual world with an aim. Dating sites are social networks with motivation. Facebook connects you with people you do not want to connect with so you can throw a sheep at them. Great. Now Yahoo! wants in on the act. Forgive me for not jumping up and down in excitement.

It seems to me there is a need for social connections but rather than new services these connections could be built upon what we already do unless there is real added value. Twitter works for me because of the conversations, Flickr because of the photography hosting and browsing.

OpenId is a way forward for user authentication and identification. What I think we need is an OpenId for buddy lists. A distributed service that works as a layer on top of any web service that implements it, making any tool potentially social.

Let’s not create more logins, profiles, user accounts, and please put privacy concerns and how we want data to be shared to the top of the priority list?

What do you think? Am I on to something? Is this being built already? Or did I fall from the top branch of the idiot tree? Please let me know in the comments …

Posted on January 8, 2008 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Web 2.0

Comments

3 Responses to “Why We Need an OpenID of Social Networks”

  1. Scramblejam on January 8th, 2008 2:08 pm

    I have to agree, Chris…

    I have signed up to my share of nascent social sites, and aside from a few blast-from-the-past friends I’ve contacted through Facebook, I’ve yet to find a solid reason to continue participating.

    A shared platform for sharing information between social sites, especially if it were easy to integrate like OpenID, would be nirvana.

    If this technology could extend to user-created sites like blogs, then social networking could truly become “networking” – a decentralised meta-network of people linked by shared contact relationships and based around the users, not the social site of choice.

    I can dream…

  2. Kenny-D on January 8th, 2008 4:29 pm

    You’ve got a good point, but what about Jabber for IM (I think GTalk is based on this)? I think it is similar to what you are talking about.

    Also, I know that *formerly known as Passport* is hardly “open”, but they have released their APIs now. If developers could swallow their pride and integrate, you have to admit it could possibly be a good thing. Especially with the Live offerings.

  3. D'Arcy Norman on January 8th, 2008 7:04 pm

    Chris, you are 100% dead-on correct here – what’s needed isn’t Yet Another Monolithic Service Vying For Attention – we need small pieces loosely joined, and that means being able to manage our own online identities and various publishing activities.

Leave a Reply