Google Press Center: News Announcement

As is normal in the social networking space, an announcement with massive implications has snuck up on us overnight, and seeing as mainstream media has not the sense nor foresight to understand its implications, the big news drifts innocently along the formal news stream of the day.

Google Friend Connect, simply, allows any site to implement users, friend lists and third-party applications using Google’s OpenSocial. So let’s say you made a great Facebook Application, and want to spread the idea: whip it into a full blown web page, implement Google OpenSocial’s FriendConnect, and now you’ve got completely control over your destiny AND a full-sized web site to boot.

While it will take a long time, my preliminary analysis is that Google will continue to improve support for FriendConnect, and continue to woo bigger and bigger companies and websites to use it, and over the course of the next few years, it will be an important part of any site that desires to be ‘connected’.

That said, Facebook just recently moved forward with their own similarly named Facebook Connect, which allows any site on the web to provide its users with a simply “Connect to Facebook” button, which will then port in all of FB’s friend and user information, and allow for the use of applications.

What’s the conclusion here? These two companies are going to war over the areas outside Facebook’s walled garden, and the next year is going to be absolutely critical to determine whether people truly value the amount of photos, friend connections and wall posts they’ve already put into their Facebook. Because Google’s FriendConnect is going to operate as most Google products do: silently. You’ll use a feature here or there, then maybe sign up one time (if you’re not already), and one day you’ll realize all your friends are on there as well, and one guy will throw up a photo on there, and a rush will occur, where everyone heads over to make their second important Social account…

Just like when MySpacians migrated to FB.

Only time will tell.

Tags: Applications, Facebook, Google, MySpace, Social Network by Neil
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I just ran across one of the most interesting blog posts I’ve read lately speculating on Web 3.0 over at Master of 500 Hats.

Not to steal Dave’s thunder, but there are a couple points I want to highlight.  The Microsoft bid to buy Yahoo is primarily to shore up it’s dominance in the Email/Instant Messaging online sectors.  Sure there are side benefits like buying up Yahoo’s advertising, search and traffic, but the winner of the Internet will be he who controls the user.

But with the battle to own the user comes the battle to own the user’s social graph, currently controlled by Facebook/MySpace/Bebo/hi5/could continue to list ad nauseum.  I keep referring to it, but all future web advertising will be contextually driven by your social graph, where brands are providing social relevance to users.  Ie. “Your friend Katie just saw (insert cookie-cutter Will Ferrell movie) and rated it 5 stars!” (ok I kid, it will be impossible for a Will Ferrell movie to be rated as excellent again… the days of Old School and Anchorman are over).

I think it’s also highly important to note the fact that we as users on the Internet now have hundreds of logins/passwords for every individual site on the net.  This is a problem that needs to be solved, and while attempts have been made (Microsoft Passport or the community driven OpenID), nothing will happen until one company owns enough of the user’s Internet life to make it beneficial for the user (really, what’s the difference in consolidating your logins from 60 to 50?).  Alternatively, if the smaller communities can build enough momentum around the OpenID concept, it could be viable, but whether that is a possibility remains to be seen.

The final piece of the puzzle are the e-commerce/payment conglomerates.  Look for the Microsoft/Google duopoly to put pressure on eBay (and their very valuable PayPal) and Amazon for merger/acquisitions in the next few years.

Where do the small players stand in this heated battle?  Well, I sort of compare it to the open source community who has not only weathered giants like Microsoft’s attempts to push them out, but actually blossomed in the modern Internet era.  If the small guys can provide real value to users, by churning out innovations while being completely flexible to quickly capitalize on new ideas, they will have a direct line to sink their (small) teeth into the necks of Google and Microsoft.  And instead of a one-sided parasitic relationship, Microsoft and Google will leverage these small-time players to come up with new innovations and either partner or swallow them up for big money when it makes sense.  And sometimes these guys will have such momentum that they will swim past these sharks to potentially become a shark themselves (could Facebook be this shark?  That question requires an entirely new post) (and one more side point – I’m not sure whether I should perhaps be calling Microsoft and Google ‘whales’ instead).

The Internet and Web 2.0 is a playground for innovation due to the extremely low barriers to entry and it’s massive channel to instantly reach all users around the globe.  It’s an exciting time to see all the fish in the sea battle (and work symbiotically) to control the Internet.

Tags: Advertising, Facebook, Google, Marketing, MySpace, Social Network by Tim McKillican
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A great interview with the founder of SocialThing!, one of two competing “lifestreaming” services. In short, services that collect and interact with information on all the different services available to you on the web.

Check it out here.

With recent moves by FriendFeed to open up its API, it’s clear that the application, developed by former Google programmers, is taking a direct shot to become an integral social tool for the web.  This threatens Facebook, MySpace and even the traditional concept of a social network.

Eventually, we may see a feed oriented web supplanted by either OpenID or perhaps a Google sign-in first.  Only time will tell how FF and Twitter progress.

Tags: Facebook, Google, MySpace, Social Network, Usability by Neil
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If there was any doubt about the new development paradigm that Facebook ushered in last summer with the launch of the Facebook Application Platform, all dissent was crushed this week with Apple’s launch of the iPhone SDK and MySpace’s recent launch of their own application development platform. With these recent announcements, the viability of allowing individual developers free reign on proprietary platforms was significantly strengthened.

While individual developers have always had creative ideas and innovations, they historically lacked a channel by which to bring their creations to the masses in an easy and efficient manner. With the floodgates now opened, individual developers and small teams from around the world can now develop innovative applications in just days/weeks and then leverage these channels to gain a mass following sometimes even hours after launch. You no longer must be working for a global development company with footprint in major retail chains or a large online marketing presence to market your wares. The opportunities for creation and distribution are now easily at the fingertips of any aspiring developer. It certainly is an exciting time for both these developers, as well as consumers, who will reap the benefits of all these new innovations.

But there’s always a catch, right? With everyone and their dog having access to these new channels, consumers are going to be overwhelmed with choice and bombarded with new applications left and right (as if I need to allude to the problems that Facebook has had with controlling the spam around applications). What application developers must do to really establish a quality and loyal user-base and wade through the influx of applications is to create applications that deliver immediate benefits (since modern Internet users generally have the attention span of a 5-year old) while providing real and lasting value to consumers.

Tags: Apple, Facebook, Marketing, MySpace, Social Network by Tim McKillican
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