More on the big three announcements … Facebook’s Connect, Google’s Friend Connect and MySpace’s Data Availability. In short, it is all about data control and extending their ‘social influence’ to other web sites to capture more and more data for the social graph … and no doubt to bolster the value of their underlying revenue streams.

Each of the services proposes keeping their member’s data on their servers – no shock there. Their version of ‘open’ is via the use of widgets, applications or iFrames – however, they all have the same strategy – extend the reach and control more data.

The early pitches from the big three (going back to Facebook's announcements in 2006) were based on the ‘Social Cloud’ and integration via simple REST APIs. The tune has changed now to integration via widgets, applications or iFrames under a “let-me-do/outsource-it-for-you” approach … we’ll just make it easy for you to inter-operate with our data using standards such as OpenID, OAuth, etc.

If you buy this approach, then you accept the fact that it is OK for Facebook, MySpace, Google, et. al. to control more of your data …

A week after the “big” announcements about commitment to being open, seems like not everyone in the sand box wants to play nice. The issue? Facebook has taken their bucket and spade and decided to Opt-Out of Google’s Friend Connect.

TechCrunch’s Steve Gillmor has put together the must read article on the issue entitled “Facebook’s Glass Jaw”…

Facebook’s rationale is that Friend Connect “redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service.” Give me a break. Can anyone say Beacon?

Err, let me understand this … It’s OK if Facebook does this with exactly the same API with Facebook applications to enable their users to share data with sites and applications they choose … however, as Gillmor states “…somehow Friend Connect does its dirty work without users’ knowledge”.

Facebook responded quickly to MySpace Data Availablity (partnering with Yahoo!, EBay and Twitter) ...

Refer link to Facebook Develepers, "Announcing Facebook Connect" by David Morin on Friday May 9th at 12:32pm.

Expect a lot of discussion around who has the most Dataportability compliant effort ... The battle lines will be drawn over data ownership, access and privacy ... Refer first article from David Recorden (Open Platforms Tech Lead at SixApart) entitled "MySpace's Data Availability is not Data Portability" over at O'Reilly Radar ...

Let the games begin.

Facebook - Err, my bad. However, refer terms of use ... oh, and we have teams that look for this type of stuff (well, after the horse has bolted) ... Roll to the video and tell me you're comfortable putting personally identificably information on Facebook ...

Refer below for the YouTube version of the BBC article on their Hong Kong web site ...

Or, go to the BBC Web Site for the version that wasn't uploaded to YouTube Hong Kong.

The Economist recently published an article on Online Social Networks entitled “Everywhere and Nowhere”.
The article leads with … “ Social Networking will become a ubiquitous feature of online life. That does not mean it is a business.” Moreover, it concludes with … “ Social Networking may end up being everywhere, and yet nowhere.”

Online / Digital Marketing Spend – not a business? Check again. Over $20 billion in revenues in 2007. Amount targeted towards niche social venues? – over $2 billion in 2007 (with this sub-segment projected to grow at a staggering 75% per annum). Why? They build targeted, relevant communities of interest. Conversations aggregate around communities of interest … not brand web sites. Savvy marketers understand the difference.

The big controversy over the past week was over the video footage posted to the Internet of six teenage girls beating up another girl while two other boys watched ... allegedly over content posted on MySpace. Refer video below from Salon.com (apologies in advance for excessive violence and potty-mouth language):