I have more beta invites and memberships to sites that I’ve used a handful of times than anyone should ever have. While I am admittedly in the geeky minority the reason that many of these social networks and potentially useful (though not always) memberships end up abandoned only to live out the rest of their days in my bacn folder is because social tools by their very nature require a social aspect to be truly useful. Facebook without your friends list is really nothing at all. Twitter without followers and people to follow would be a lonely exercise in yelling into the ether in 140 character chunks.
The answer up to now has been either to search and find your friends on every network you want to join or to allow sites to search your email (eek!) for people who have already signed up. Of course this doesn’t work if they used a different email to sign up than you use to email them and we’ve already seen what can happen when unscrupulous bottom-feeders like get involved with that.
Cue DataPortability org a working group comprised of some of the major thought leaders in the social networking space. Their vision is to create a framework where my contacts on Facebook can be the same as my contacts on Bebo can be in my email address book can be hooked into Twitter. This is part of a larger movement to create online web standards dictated by users not by companies who want to lock down a file format or a proprietary codec.
What does it mean for the future of social networking? First it means that users have a lot more choice which means that the larger social networks will need to step up their game. Like any media once consumers aren’t locked down by restrictions they will consume media in the way that suits them best. Second it means that niche social networks (like dopplr or Upcoming org) can thrive. Without the massive barrier to transporting your social graph from one service to another social micronetworks can form and more importantly monetize. With no more need to reproduce your friends list social media can become more pervasive both online and off with the control held by the user and not a corporation.
The movement also has privacy implications for anyone involved. If I provide my contact info to someone via one social network in theory it means that it can propagate to all of those social networks. It also means that the Chinese wall between your business life and your personal life (if you have one… I personally think they’re overrated) comes down and all of a sudden Ernie “the Keg” Smith from university and your boss are connected by one degree. Also dangerous but these are things that are in many cases already happening and the discussions at this level will hopefully address these points.
So far. Facebook. Google. Plaxo and a host of other major players have joined the discussion which is extremely positive for the group. The big players need to buy in and the niche players need to have their concerns addresed as well for this to work. What will come of these discussions remains to be seen but hopefully it will lead to the user having more control over their own data rather than companies like Facebook simply monetizing that data and providing little to the playground other than a grassy field and an unblinking eye watching everything you do.
Hi Ryan,Your contact form was broken so I'm posting this as a comment. My name is Christian and I recently started a blog called Idea Drunk. It's all about ideation brainstorming and cool ideas. Anyways. I just got posted to the Ad Age Power 150 and that inspired me to compile a post that featured all of the fellow Canadians on the listing. I'm new to the etiquette of blogging but was informed that it's polite to let people know when you link to them! It's got a line or two about your blog but let me know if I got any details wrong. Thanks,Christian
This site is my sandbox for developing a holistic philosophy of how PR is being forever changed by social media. In a world where everyone is a broadcaster our jobs as communicators are becoming much more difficult. For me this site is as much about learning as it is about teaching. I want to be called out on my mistakes and challenged on my beliefs. We're all looking for answers. My hope is that we can find it together.
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Related article:
http://www.ryananderson.ca/2008/01/14/data-portability-and-the-future-of-social-networks/
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