23 Musings

So Bebo have announced an application development platform with support for Facebook apps. Their using Facebooks platform standards so this should allow for interoperability.

Now Bebo were listed as one of the first OpenSocial partners, everyone else is reporting that this latest news is a snub to OpenSocial but I actually think it's a very shrewd move from Bebo.

Not only will their apps be compatible with Facebook making it much easier for developers but if they are still going to work with OpenSocial as well they will cover all the bases very easily. It is possible they go the Facebook route alone but I doubt it as that will restrict their coverage.

The killer thing for me is if these apps can share data between networks. It's all great making standards so development is easy but allowing a Bebo app to talk to a Facebook app, share data and the social graph will open up a world of possibilities and allow for true portability of data (and functionality).

Very interesting story on the Channel 4 website today.

Apparently, a Facebook user has logged an official complaint with the UK Privacy Watchdog after it transpired that trying to leave Facebook didn't actually mean that your data was all deleted and removed from their servers. Actually, when you try to leave Facebook all it does is deactivate your account and keep the data on their servers so anyone who changes their mind can easily sign back up again.

Now that's all well and good, but storage of personal data and photos of someone who doesn't actually want to use your service is blatantly against the UK Data Protection Act (I believe). The act is designed to protect people like you and me from having their personal data misused in any way. Facebook definitely have the resources and technical know how to offer a way to delete the data for those who really want to delete an account. By not doing so they are making it very difficult for users to clean up their trail of data, it could take hours to go round the site deleting everything you've ever posted or uploaded.

Will be interesting to see how this pans out! I do wonder whether MySpace and Bebo etc offer this full deletion service or whether they are also possibly infringing on ex-users privacy.

For development... Don't get too excited as this doesn't guarantee them dominance in the social networking world but Google have a bit of a coup as they've announced MySpace, Bebo and Six Apart are going to be working on Open Social too. Apparently Google have been in talks with MySpace for about a year on this (which explains the recent appetite to open up from MySpace). Techcrunch has more here.

Here's the official announcement from Google on their blog, and here's the link to the API's which is now live.

And for an insight into why this is all happening, here's a video from a Google event last night explaining more about why it's good to be open.

The full list of Open Social members is pretty formidable (MySpace, Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, Bebo and XING). Should Facebook be worrying? Well right now all the announcements mean is that there will be an amazing amount of openness between the members of Open Social and there should be some pretty amazing development going on. It doesn't yet mean that people will leave Facebook for anywhere else (although the chances of that will get greater).

There may be an opportunity here for an early adopter of Open Social standards to create an uber social network which features functionality and data from all the participating networks. It makes the evolution of the life stream much more important and likely to appear sooner. It also gives choice, no longer do you have to stick with anyones interface, you should be able to move away and go to other places while still keeping in touch with the networks.

Now if I had some spare cash I may be tempted by this!

Forbes report that a groundbreaking patent related to social networking is coming up for auction very soon. The "Jaipuria Patent", U.S. Patent 7,047,202, and a pending continuation-in-part application, which are amongst the foremost patent filings related to the social networking industry. The Jaipuria Patent was filed in 2001 and claims priority to an earlier application filed in India in 2000 -- before the growth of the social networking industry. These patent assets will be offered as Lot 54 at the Ocean Tomo Fall 2007 Live IP Auction on October 25th at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago.

The patent involves means for building a user and community driven secure social network, flexible privacy features for users in maintaining their online social network, and a means to refer users to one another via a referral network. In addition, the patent covers a social networking technology that is driven by user privacy features - fundamental to all successful social networking services today. Now that all sounds pretty familiar doesn't it?

Other features are (quote from Forbes) 'Among the many social network features disclosed and claimed in the patent and pending application are: fundamental technology used to develop and maintain an online social network; creating an online social network including individual users and groups; searching a social network to identify users and groups for keywords and then identifying a chain of contacts leading to the targeted user or group; flexibility in granting user defined privacy rights and access levels to control availability of user's personal information and contacts with respect to others in user's personal and extended network; process of anonymous referral networking using a link by link request forwarding system; and accessing and using social network via the Internet or wireless devices.'

Now, Facebook, MySpace and Bebo all use these types of functions as fundamental parts of their services. I'm confused as to why the owner of this patent hasn't tried taking legal action in the past. The only reason I can see for selling this is to try to make money from someone who may use it either in a lawsuit or to sell it to an existing network. Although if it hasn't been used up to now then I'm a bit sceptical as to its value. Will be interesting to see what it goes for!

So we've all read the recent reports of businesses banning Facebook, Bebo and MySpace to try to prevent employees wasting time. We've also read the stories about recruiters and employers using social networks to check out prospective hires. Now the TUC (Trade Union Congress) have stepped up and issues some guidelines to help employees and employers make informed decisions about usage in the workplace. They also discuss the possibility of it being discriminatory to not hire someone based on their Facebook profile when they might be the only candidate with one (good point!).

There's some guidelines for TUC members here, and some guidelines aimed at employers here.

It's quite amazing to see something like this happen. The TUC is generally an old school organisation so to see them tackling this kind of issue is testament to the huge popularity and buzz surrounding social networks at the moment.

Bebo have announced that they are integrating Windows Live Messenger to power IM on the social networking website. Now users on Bebo will be able to chat live with other Bebo members and import contacts from their Live account.

This is a god step for Microsoft to get into a social network easily. All that happens is an IM button will appear on all profiles and suddenly Microsoft have practically merged their IM network with the Bebo network.

Perhaps Microsoft will buy them next and turn them into a Windows social network??

It's a constant pain having so many profiles on so many different social networks and having to remember credentials and keep them up to date. Staying in touch with different people on different networks, getting requests from Linkedin, Facebook and Bebo, forgetting who's on which network when you want to contact someone, the list of frustrations is endless.

To that end, there's a really good article on the BBC here which discusses how desirable interoperability would be between social networks.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a social networking standard that enabled interactions, open standards, open API's, open data exchange between the networks. Developers would be able to create single sign-in applications that could manage all your profiles as one. Someone could create an on/offline app with Adobe AIR that could allow profile changes, photo uploads etc all offline and synchronising when connected. The possibilities would be endless, of course the privacy issues could be too!

More Bebo widgets on the way. Bebo have announced they will be releasing four more widgets for the social network beginning on Monday.

What the widgets will be is anyones guess, however there's a good chance that at least one of them could be related to it's iTunes integration. This hurried release could be a response to the huge success of the Facebook applications which are spreading like wildfire.

Bebo have announced that they are now going to use Audible Magic to check content for copyright. This makes them the third social network to use them after first MySpace and then YouTube announced it.

Audible Magic must be doing very well indeed out of all of this, I would imagine they are wishing lawsuits on websites that haven't yet trialled their software...

In these days of social networks and community based web sites it's no surprise to learn that employers are wising up to the wealth of information that prospective employees are posting about themselves online. Most web users have signed up to at least one social network or community, many using their own names or posting identifying details. Some of these sites are good self PR (Linkedin, Xing, Soflow etc), while others can be sources of rather less positive PR (MySpace, Bebo, Faceparty etc). With the pervasiveness of these websites and the growing profile, is it now time people got a bit more cautious about what they post?

According to a report from business social network, Viadeo these social networks can have a significant effect when applying for a job. According to the research, one in five employers finds information about candidates on the internet and 59 per cent of those said it influences recruitment decisions. A quarter of HR decision-makers said they had rejected candidates based on personal information found online. Examples of information that has proved to create a negative impression of candidates include MySpace or Faceparty sites which expose excessive drinking or a general disrespect for work. Ethical issues which prospects post about on blogs and social sites can also put a stop to a job application before it gets off the ground.

The moral? Careful what you post, you never know who's reading your blog/profile... Self PR is something you can control through sensible use of blogs and social networks, you can even improve your employability through strategic use of the positive networks or blogging about issues relating to your chosen field. This could become a really good way to increase your profile with employers and to impress before you even get to interview.

A sign of the importance and penetration of the social networks came out of Google today, they released the list of the top searched for words on the search engine from 2006. The list is as follows:

1. Bebo
2. MySpace
3. World Cup
4. Metacafe
5. Radioblog
6. Wikipedia
7. Video
8. Rebelde
9. Mininova
10. Wiki

As you can see there's a lot of social going on!

Great news for the Bebo guys that they came above MySpace I reckon. I've always rated Bebo as more of a longstayer than MySpace. I'd expect Bebo to grow and improve where as MySpace is more likely to reach a point where it becomes so full of spam and porn that it stops growing.

News yesterday that Bebo have launched a personalised homepage feature which pulls data from your list of friends together in one place. Great advancement for the site and incredibly useful (and I'm sure MySpace will follow/extend their functionality to provide this).

However, how much more useful would somewhere that pulls data from Bebo and MySpace onto one page be?

The answer lies in services such as Iceflake and the newly launched Spokeo. Both offer a personalised homepage that pulls data from many social websites (Bebo, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Xanga etc).

Netvibes etc do offer some integration with social networks and websites (and of course there's always RSS), but I reckon that the first personalised homepage service (who has an established large audience) who offers similar functionality to Iceflake/Spokeo will become very busy very quickly!