Friendconnect & OpenSocial implications

As users, we do not want to be locked in the many social networking sites we are part of. But our social network is the asset that makes these sites valuable. In fact, at the moment, the network that we build in one site cannot be exported/shared/used in another one.

Google has proposed Friendconnect & OpenSocial to facilitate data portability and give the ability to move our network wherever we go. Of course, this has a profound implications and promise to change status quo, and not everybody is happy about it.

See these nice posts from Techcrunch: Facebook’s Glass Jaw and Facebook’s Friends Data Has Already Left the Barn

Google triumphant

From a FT article, Google triumphant: Search wars look settle, some excerpts:

Eric Schmidt was doing his level best late last week not to gloat. With Microsoft dropping its attempted takeover of Yahoo, the Google chief executive had just seen his arch-rival abandon its most direct attack yet on Google’s growing dominance of online search and advertising.

On the current trajectory, Google’s revenue – almost all of it coming from search – will probably surpass the income that Microsoft generates from the Windows operating system some time next year.

The web is going social

data portability and social connections seem to be the latest trend on the web.

Google has just announced friendconnect:

Websites that are not social networks may still want to be social, any website owner can add a snippet of code to his or her site and get social features up and running immediately without programming — picking and choosing from built-in functionality like user registration, invitations, members gallery, message posting, and reviews, as well as third-party applications built by the OpenSocial developer community.

Facebook has announced Facebook Connect:

Facebook Connect is the next iteration of Facebook Platform that allows users to “connect” their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site. This will now enable third party websites to implement and offer even more features of Facebook Platform off of Facebook – similar to features available to third party applications today on Facebook.

MySpace has announced Data Availability:

A new way for users to dynamically share their user generated content and data with websites of their choosing. The Data Availability initiative is founded first and foremost on the simple and comprehensive user control of their own content and data—users will have control over what information they share and who they share it with.

The news reported from other blogs, Search Engine Land, John Battelle, TechCrunch