MySpace Annoucing Open Data Portability?

Hat tip to Nick O'Neill at Social Times for breaking the story, it looks as if MySpace is announcing that they have partnered with Yahoo, Twitter and others to have open portable profiles. TechCruch has more information here and shows a mock up of what it would look like while on Twitter.

This new found openness along with the developing Open Social standard will go a long way to creating a social networking environment that doesn't require me to keep 57 usernames and passwords and create a new friggin profile every time a new app or website pops up.

Yahoo Joins OpenSocial

Breaking news from the WSJ- Yahoo has joined the OpenSocial initiative. It looks like Facebook is on the outside looking in now. I wonder how long it will take them to cave in.

From the article:

Yahoo's announcement Tuesday could also put pressure on Facebook, the closely held social network that so far has not signed on to the effort.

Yahoo called itself a "founding member" of the foundation, which is planned to be an independent non-profit entity with a formal intellectual property and governance framework. Related assets will be assigned to the new organization by July 1.

The foundation will focus on issues including technology, documentation and intellectual property.

Social applications -- which let users do things such as see the music friends are listening to and share photo slideshows - have emerged as a popular activity for users of social networking sites, and a potentially powerful vehicle for delivering advertisements. Prior to OpenSocial, if a developer built a "favorite photos" application to work on one social network, it would have to be built all over again to work on another site.

Google introduced the initiative to put pressure on Facebook and MySpace, which is owned by News Corp., publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Facebook offers its own specifications for software developers and the over 7,000 such add-on applications for its site have contributed to Facebook's popularity and usage.

Steve Pearman, MySpace's senior vice president of product strategy, said, "Yahoo is an important addition to the OpenSocial movement, and through this foundation we will work together to provide developers with the tools to make the Internet move faster and to foster more innovation and creativity."

The OpenSocial foundation also launched a website: opensocial.org

Nokia Buying Part of Facebook?

I read a headline earlier today about how Facebook was passing MySpace as the most popular social networking website. I can't say I read the actual story- I think it was on Drudge- but it makes sense to me. Most people I know use Facebook exclusively.

Now, I read on one of my favorite newsy websites, StrategyEye, that Nokia and Facebook might be developing a strong relationship.....Hmmmm.

Nokia is rumoured to be poised to take a stake in Facebook as part of a partnership between it and the mobile phone maker where the social network will be integrated into Nokia's handsets. A report on tech blog, PaidContent claims that the "the Facebook placement could be as prominent as the YouTube button on the main screen of iPhone." The site also cites "sources" who say the "early stage talks" involve the possibility of Nokia purchasing a stake in the company. Spokespersons from either side failed to comment, although a Nokia exec reportedly admits: "There is talk of a partnership in the works."

The rumours come a week after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said on a US TV interview that the site was "highly unlikely" to go public in 2008. However, the firm reportedly took an undisclosed amount of funding last week, rumoured to be between USD10m and USD15m, from European Founders Fund, a firm owned by three German entrepreneurs, the Samwer Brothers. The investors are also said to have a stake in Facebook rival, LinkedIn. Various rumours surround Facebook and it was also recently linked with an acquisition of social community and online address book, Plaxo.

Nokia, which said it was to cut some 2,300 jobs last week as part of the closure of a German plant, has been making moves into the online space of late. Earlier this month it signed a deal with mobile games firm Vivendi. Last month, it said it is to offer mobile users unlimited access to music downloads from the second half of 2008, with a content deal with Universal Music. Meanwhile, it has also been expanding and making deals based on its newly launched Ovi mobile platform.

Interesting no? How many times have we seen the builders/owners of the "pipes" look enviously at the content developers/organizers and wonder how to get a piece of the action? Nokia is hardly a carrier, but it is very intriging that they are differentiating themselves by trying to associate themselves with a popular destination community- a la iPhone and YouTube.

I hope you all had a wonderful July Fourth week last week. I spent the big day at the Washington Nationals game. The Nats won 6-0 over the Cubs. As a childhood White Sox fan, and now Nats fan, this result made me very, very happy.


Another thing that has been making me happy recently is the explosion of interest in Facebook. It's been increasingly clear that MySpace just isn't going to the networking platform of the future. Too much spam for one thing. Facebook has its limitations too, but now that they have opened their platform to outside developers and VC money is flowing to find small app ideas, I foresee a lot of these limitations being addressed.

In the end, though, someone needs to combine all these different networking platforms into one meta, uber service. I'd like to get my Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn networks to work with each other which preserving the "separateness" of each part of life and each group of contacts.

Here is an interesting article in Time written by a 35+ old like me who has mixed feelings about social media and networking sites.