The social networking gold rush - Headsup on a blog post
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Ismail Dhorat
May 17, 2008, 11:48:48 AM5/17/08
to dataportability...@googlegroups.com
Hey guys,
Ismail here from South Africa, i have been lurking here for the last few months but i felt it's time to contribute. I have seen how portability can affect a market and introduce customer choice and its a step in the right direction. From my experience incumbents will fight it as hard as they can. For example in South Africa with mobile number portability, the regulator had to step in an ENFORCE it on the incumbent operators. Even with regulation it took several years before it was actually implemented due to many delays, eventually with threats of fines we saw the light of day.
I have been invited to write for a newly created thought leader blog in South Africa (www.techleader.co.za) and will be covering DP in my first post, and evangelizing going forward. Let me know your thoughts on the post below.
/I
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The social networking space is reminiscent of a gold rush right now, Facebook, MySpace and google all want to stake their claim in the ground and claim they are 'open' and allowing you to port your data while still trying to control your identity but the question we have to ask:
Is it enough? Is it truly open?
First Myspace announced data availability for which they would open up their API to developers and this would allow any other website to query profile data available on Myspace. Then facebook followed up with facebook connect, which would allow you to take some of your data to authorized sites and Google was last out the gate with their announcement of friend connect which aims to be the middle man and lets you add social features to your site by connecting to facebook's API amongst others. Facebook retaliated by blocking Google due to 'privacy' issues.
Having been involved with mobile number portability in South Africa, i joined several data portability working groups a few months back and have been watching the developments with keen interest. This scuffle between Google and Facebook has lead to many heated debates within the blogosphere. Umair Haque at Harvard Business Online actually goes as far as calling Facebook 'evil' and says:
"Last week, I discussed Facebook's relentless evil, how that was a profound strategic error, and why the costs of evil are starting to outweigh the benefits - for everyone, not just Facebook. "
The outcry is understandable because it is no longer an issue about data anymore. It's about what rights we have to the data that we so religiously enter into these social networks. The mere fact that they are opening up API's is a step in the right direction, but it's not true openness and not enough. Facebook, Myspace and Google do not have the best interests of users in mind right now, their eyes are glazed over with future marketing dollars.
What is best for users would be a standard for the portability of our data between social networks but we also need to rethink the concept of data portability. In addition to data portability, we need social networks to inter-network with each other. We need a shared and common strategy, not just amongst the big guys but even the smaller niche market social networks.
This would allow us to choose which ever social network we would like to support, regardless of which network our friends belong to. It would allow us to contact and socialize with people irrespective of who their social network is. Currently if I would like to sign up at a locally based social network it would mean i need two accounts as most of my friends are on facebook and because of that i would hardly ever use it. Think about it this way, do you think email would be as popular today if you could only email people who signed up at the same email service provider as you? What about phones calls? When you come to the realisation that social networking is just another form of communication and interaction you realise that, like other methods of communication (Email, Phone calls) closed platforms and systems are actually a hindrance to communication. We may be in Web 2.0 but our social networks are still at version 1.0.
Ismail here from South Africa, i have been lurking here for the last few months but i felt it's time to contribute. I have seen how portability can affect a market and introduce customer choice and its a step in the right direction. From my experience incumbents will fight it as hard as they can. For example in South Africa with mobile number portability, the regulator had to step in an ENFORCE it on the incumbent operators. Even with regulation it took several years before it was actually implemented due to many delays, eventually with threats of fines we saw the light of day.
I have been invited to write for a newly created thought leader blog in South Africa (www.techleader.co.za) and will be covering DP in my first post, and evangelizing going forward. Let me know your thoughts on the post below.
/I
------
The social networking space is reminiscent of a gold rush right now, Facebook, MySpace and google all want to stake their claim in the ground and claim they are 'open' and allowing you to port your data while still trying to control your identity but the question we have to ask:
Is it enough? Is it truly open?
First Myspace announced data availability for which they would open up their API to developers and this would allow any other website to query profile data available on Myspace. Then facebook followed up with facebook connect, which would allow you to take some of your data to authorized sites and Google was last out the gate with their announcement of friend connect which aims to be the middle man and lets you add social features to your site by connecting to facebook's API amongst others. Facebook retaliated by blocking Google due to 'privacy' issues.
Having been involved with mobile number portability in South Africa, i joined several data portability working groups a few months back and have been watching the developments with keen interest. This scuffle between Google and Facebook has lead to many heated debates within the blogosphere. Umair Haque at Harvard Business Online actually goes as far as calling Facebook 'evil' and says:
"Last week, I discussed Facebook's relentless evil, how that was a profound strategic error, and why the costs of evil are starting to outweigh the benefits - for everyone, not just Facebook. "
The outcry is understandable because it is no longer an issue about data anymore. It's about what rights we have to the data that we so religiously enter into these social networks. The mere fact that they are opening up API's is a step in the right direction, but it's not true openness and not enough. Facebook, Myspace and Google do not have the best interests of users in mind right now, their eyes are glazed over with future marketing dollars.
What is best for users would be a standard for the portability of our data between social networks but we also need to rethink the concept of data portability. In addition to data portability, we need social networks to inter-network with each other. We need a shared and common strategy, not just amongst the big guys but even the smaller niche market social networks.
This would allow us to choose which ever social network we would like to support, regardless of which network our friends belong to. It would allow us to contact and socialize with people irrespective of who their social network is. Currently if I would like to sign up at a locally based social network it would mean i need two accounts as most of my friends are on facebook and because of that i would hardly ever use it. Think about it this way, do you think email would be as popular today if you could only email people who signed up at the same email service provider as you? What about phones calls? When you come to the realisation that social networking is just another form of communication and interaction you realise that, like other methods of communication (Email, Phone calls) closed platforms and systems are actually a hindrance to communication. We may be in Web 2.0 but our social networks are still at version 1.0.
Elias Bizannes
May 18, 2008, 7:58:27 AM5/18/08
to DataPortability.Action.Evangelism
Looks good! :)
Ismail Dhorat
May 19, 2008, 7:11:51 AM5/19/08
to dataportability...@googlegroups.com
Posted At:
http://www.techleader.co.za/ismaildhorat/2008/05/17/the-great-data-portability-gold-rush/
http://www.techleader.co.za/ismaildhorat/2008/05/17/the-great-data-portability-gold-rush/
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