Social Network Interoperability

[jducoeur]

For a year or so now, I've been thinking about the problem of the larger social network -- how to deal with the plethora of social networks that are springing up out there. Others have also been pondering this, but I've just stumbled across the most interesting one yet: BradFitz, founder of LJ (and now at Google) is starting to look at the problem really seriously. He seems to be focused particularly on one aspect of the issue -- how to leverage the existing social network for future applications -- but that may well be a key element, and I'm intrigued by what he says. This may turn into an interesting and significant project, and make life easier pretty soon...

Comments

[asim.livejournal.com]

At this rate (OpenID, memcache, this concept) brad's going to go down in history as the Secret Enabler of the poorly-named Web 2.0.

Don't know if it will work, but it's an idea he's well-equipped to work with. And if Google puts weight behind it (and OpenID!), it could go places; it would also be 100% within their purview, and a way to ad-drive more products for them. Oh, and maybe to finally get Orkut out of the doldrums it's in in the North American/European market...

[jducoeur]

Yeah -- Brad is definitely one of those rare people on the Web who really, truly impresses me. He comes up with cool ideas *and* puts them into action. (And then goes and does something else.)

As for OpenID, that's already got a pretty good freight train of momentum behind it. I don't actually love the protocol -- I think it's a bit of a hack, especially when compared to the very elegant WS-Trust approach -- but it's very practical, and even Microsoft have tacitly said that they think it's going to succeed...