Robert Scoble and Facebook contd: Scraping, Walled Gardens, Data Portability and the Social Graph
This is a continuation of my post on the teacup storm about Robert Scoble getting kicked off facebook.
Scraping
Ok back to the scraping. On this issue Scoble needs to just leave it off. I agree with the people to a large extent that say “look, it’s a service with terms that you sign up to, if you don’t like them but want the service ask them to change or leave”. Don’t cry when they kick you off for breaking those terms. If they don’t change and do what their customers want, someone else will eventually build something better and you’ll use that instead. That’s just how it works…
Walled Gardens
Wow! I can never understand the mentality of a social network that would set itself up for this problem given the nature of contracts, both social and economic, implicit and explicit. To give an example it is generally recommended for a happy working environment that employers not put to onerous a restriction on the ability of an employee to leave, as this in itself can cause dissatisfaction later on and result in them to wanting to leave earlier. Therefore the theory goes that the employee will be happier if he knows that if this job isn’t for him he can move on, causing a totally different mindset. This is not new thinking people, it’s been around for a while and applies to walled garden terms of service contracts and social contracts in the same way. Try and lock me in and I’ll try and get out. It’s inevitable that a walled garden can only have a limited life expectancy and growth potential. But on the other hand if I were facebook I’d be making hay while the sun was shining too.
Social Graph
The last thing I’d like to address and I think highly relevant to this whole issue is the very idea of the social graph and data portability. While not everyone agrees that data portability is a good thing. I think that everyone agrees that you ought to have the choice to change your web service for another similar one without losing all of your connectivity. So the question becomes, “how do we address this?”. Some people suggest Open-id is the answer. It certainly is one answer and a step in the right direction but, (and it’s a big one) that only allows my ID to follow me around meaning where it’s supported I can sign in once and that’ll do for the day, it doesn’t answer the data portability question really. Ok so Google, Facebook et al sign up for the Data Portability WorkGroup and OpenID, so what, is the problem now near being solved? I don’t think that it is.
The real issue here is the idea of social graph and that it is movable at all. I think this is preposterous. This is where a technical approach must be discarded and the reality has to bite back a bit. Let me explain, the reality is that people do not want to be members of 3, 4 or 5 services which do essentially the same thing (personal note I’ve just realised I’m in 7 social networks!!! I mean 7!!) but we are forced to because our friends are on them. The social graph is not something that can be written down or put on a disk in any meaningful way right now, because it doesn’t exist on the web. It is a real thing merely somewhat represented online. Your social graph could only become portable if your friends changed services whenever you did. So what needs to be done is that the web needs to become more like the real world. The walled gardens do need to be broken down but not in the way that is being talked about right now.
Standardisation of messaging and connection methods
The next step in social networking is standardisation of messaging and connection methods. This simple step along with Open Social would make it possible for me to stick with the social tool that I feel suits my needs and personality the best and enjoy the same connectivity with people in my social graph that are in their tool of choice as I do now with friends inside one of those networks. It’s like living in a different apartment building, you can’t nip in nextdoor to Alice anymore and it looks different but it doesn’t mean the mail and telephone won’t go there. And that is what a social network profile is, it’s where you LIVE on the net.
So in my view the future of the web is that it itself will become the background for a series of totally interconnected social networks competing on the basis of providing context and service. You’ll join the one you feel represents you the best and connect to your friends in their social networks through one or two social profiles that you feel represent you. You won’t need to join a new service just because you change or because a bunch of friends do. There will be no need for data portability at all. In the mean time in the words of the old Cole Porter/Robert Fletcher song please..
don’t fence me in….