Well, well, well. The really big players are waking up to the rising threat of Facebook’s proprietary Web OS strategy. If TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington got the scoop right, the fireworks will start in early November. Their coverage bears the headline, “Google to ‘Out Open’ Facebook on November 5“.
ZDnet’s Dan Farber covers it with a story “Google forays into the heart of social networking.”
I told you the spirit of the “Bill of Rights” for users of the social web was not missplaced!
Just got a heads-up from David Recordon about exciting progress they’re making at SixApart on the effort to open up the social graph, leveraging open standards, like: OpenID, hCard XFN, and FOAF. Read the detailed post on their blog.
Joseph Smarr, Plaxo, and I strongly support this effort. For those who think the Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web is too lofty and impractical, witness this and moves soon to follow.
Tomorrow is the last day to vote for panels for next Spring’s SXSW conference. Joseph Smarr, chief platform architect for Plaxo, has proposed “In Defense of the Open Social Web.” Please show your support with a vote!
(That’s Joseph on the left, talking with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Niall Kennedy)
Marc Canter’s taking the “Bill of Rights” dialogue one step further, with an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg. Go, Marc, go!
Not sure if anyone you know has done you the favor of building a profile page for you on Yahoo! Mash yet, but someone did for me. Wow. Thanks. I was really hoping there’d be another place for me to post things about myself, like what sort of animal I would be. Or worse, have other people make frivolous edits to my profile. Oh, yeah, and thanks for calling the feed feature “Pulse.”
As I said at Office 2.0, I agree with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook that something very big is happening, and that the social graph turbo-charges apps. (Where he and I disagree is whether Facebook or any corporation should own that social graph, or whether each user should own his/her own piece. of it.) What I’m hoping, though, is that we can see more apps that focus on solving real problems, like how to share some stuff with your family and other stuff with various circles of your friends, and other stuff with your business network. That’s what Plaxo is up to, but it’s a very big market opportunity.
*only when users demand it.
Day 1 of the TechCrunch 40 ended on an interesting note, with a “fireside chat” between Michael Arrington and Mark Zuckerberg. I was impressed with how smooth Mark came across, and how well he had prepped for the encounter. Mark continued to use the word “open” wherever possible to refer to Facebook’s strategy of creating a proprietary OS for the social web, and used the event to announce “FB Fund,” a way to offer up grants to encourage developers to focus on FBML rather than HTML and to increase their lock-in. Sounded a lot like Microsoft of the ’90’s…
Here are some pictures from the day, including the Zuckerberg session (and one of Tantek asking the closing question about whether/when Facebook would support open standards, such as OpenID and microformats)…
Up in SF for the blowout conference TechCrunch 40. Standing room only. Heavy-hitters everywhere you turn. Highlights so far?
Michael Moritz hosted a panel discussion with Marc Andreessen, David Filo, and Chad Hurley.
Flock just demoed a very interesting “social web browser” doing some crazy and cool stuff across Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and MySpace. Worth checking out.
Right now, MusicShake is demoing music composition that “brain-dead” easy. Very cool. And nice presentation style.
Before this session, Michael Arrington asked if we had heard the news that Yahoo had just acquired Zimbra for $350 million. Wow! Quite a multiple, I suspect.
Looking forward to the session at the end of the day with Arrington interviewing Zuckerberg.
As I stopped for my quad latte on the way into work the other morning, I saw them tearing down a tall, thick wall. It was the site of a planned demolition of a building that had recently been set on fire. the sight was so jarring that it made me think about all that I had been writing recently about “tearing down the walls” of the social networks that are holding user data captive. I made a mental note to come back later, when the light would be better, to take a picture of the scene.
Then at the office today I watched Robert Scoble’s latest interview (after seeing the pictures of Milan via Plaxo Pulse). His latest subject? Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, Randi. She’s a bright young woman, and very natural in front of the camera. As I was enjoying the interview, I realized where it was filmed — right across the corner from the demolition site! So, as they chatted, this is what Randi would have seen out the corner of her eye:
I brought the poster-sized version of the Bill of Rights back with me from the Data Sharing Summit, and snapped this picture of it where it is now temporarily housed at Plaxo. Tomorrow, at our weekly company meeting, I’ll let folks here sign it. Maybe later in the week, I’ll bring it over to Facebook headquarters in downtown Palo Alto to see whether the folks working behind the wall have interest. Meanwhile, we’re working on putting up this document to a wiki to enable collaborative refinement of the wording, toward make it possible for Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and AOL to sign it.
With all the intensity of two days with Marc Canter at the Data Sharing Summit, I didn’t get a chance to reflect on Office 2.0 and my experience on the Social Computing panel. I thought it was a great chance to put some of the issues out in the open, particularly the key question about whether users or corporations will be in control of user-generated content in the social web.
Jeremiah Owyang said the Social Computing panel was the best he had seen “in a LONG time”. He did a really nice write up, here.
Mike McGrath wasn’t sold on the panel, and was about to exit the room, but he says I managed to reel him back in. What caught his attention?
Shel Israel deserves props for trying a different format for the panel. Here are his thoughts.
And here’s what was live coverage from Tris Hussey from Blognation.
It was an honor to represent Plaxo in this session, alongside LinkedIn, Six Apart, and Ning. Thanks, Shel!
The Real McCrea 