The Real McCrea

If you followed the news on Friday (no, not that news), you know that Google stirred things up with the surprise release of a Social Graph API. Plaxo managed to be the first out the gate with an application that leveraged the API, launching Public Profiles within an hour of the announcement!

Sure, I was the poster boy for the new feature, as shown in this screenshot:

But screenshots don’t really do this new feature justice. WAY BETTER to check out my actual live dynamic profile!

I had the good fortune of being invited to Social Graph Foo Camp. It was my first Foo ever, and I’m bummed that I had to leave early for some family things, because it is a really great event. Anyway, I’ve got a moment now to write a quick post. Hope to follow up with photos and more retrospective tomorrow.

One of the most lively sessions was right after lunch today. John Panzer of Google wanted to do a session on who owns data in social networks, and Joseph Smarr of Plaxo wanted to do a session on a practical pathway to friends list portability. In the spirit of unconference, suggestions arose to merge the two into one, and John and Joseph agreed it was a good idea. The session was very well attended and lively. The discussion was passionate to say the least (with some spirited back and forth on the issues surfaced in the “Scoblegate” incident). When the session ended, a big wave of applause arose.

Although foo camp has an “off the record” flavor, the following video clip was shot by me and is only of Joseph, who is cool with my sharing it publicly. So, here’s a little taste of what was a very important discussion.

Plus, here’s photos on flickr that are tagged “sgfoocamp”.

Another big day for the open social web movement. Google just launched a Social Graph API.

I’ll have more later, when Plaxo rolls out Public Profile pages, turbocharged by the API.

For now, you can see initial coverage at ZD Net and TechCrunch. Or watch Google’s Brad Fitzpatrick explain it here:

A great day for the open social web! Yahoo’s breakthrough consumer-friendly implementation of OpenID 2.0 went live today. You can sign up or sign in with it at Plaxo and other places. Rather than having to know or care about OpenID or get the concept of sign in via URL, you just use your Yahoo! credentials. Very cool.

 Good coverage over at Mashable.

It was a big day when Facebook, Plaxo, and Google joined the Data Portability workgroup in the immediate aftermath of “Scoblegate.” Stories are circulating today that Microsoft is joining, too. This bodes well for the movement. Let’s all hope these companies, all rivals, can come to agreeement on ways to let users take their data and content with them, all over the social web!

Fortunately, this fits into a broader trend, like the growing embrace of OpenID, including most recently by Yahoo!

Here’s an interview I did with Joseph Smarr of Plaxo:

A quick little vid with Plaxo’s Pete Curley, talking about the just announced Pulse for iPhone:

 Here’s coverage from Mashable.

This is a big day for the open Social Web movement. Yahoo! is putting their weight behind OpenID with a consumer-friendly implementation. I interviewed Plaxo’s Joseph Smarr to get a better sense of the real meaning of this.

 And here’s Joseph’s post on the subject.

The concepts of data portability, the social web, and the open standards that will make it all possible are explained in a simple and entertaining way in this video. Well done!

DataPortability – Connect, Control, Share, Remix from Smashcut Media on Vimeo.