The Business Web 2.0
As CEO of business-based social networking site WeCanDo.BIZ, read my take on the role Web 2.0 technologies can play helping businesses to grow.
Friday 13 February 2009, 8:25 AM
Google and Data Portability: a two pronged approach or fork in the road?
Google announces enhancements to Google Friend Connect while also showing another way of remote login and bringing over contacts at an OpenID meeting hosted by Facebook... Confused? Me too.
Oh it used to be so simple. Google came out early as a supporter of open standards in Data Portability, turning over its various initiatives in this space, like OpenSocial, to non-profit for greater good. Facebook took an opposing view and launched Facebook Connect, enabling webmasters everywhere to add code to their sites giving Facebook users the ability to login to any site using their existing identity and of posting their activity back to Facebook. Google answered with its own equivalent, Google Friend Connect. People everywhere debated which was better and came out declaring which camp was getting their support support (by the way, although Facebook Connect is more functional, Google Friend Connect one it on open standards support).
Fast forward six months and things look different. Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect still exist (and get enhancements, see below), but Facebook has since joined the OpenID crowd -- although it is yet to make FBC OpenID compliant. Weirder still, Google, seemingly having won over its main rival in the space to its way of thinking, now seems to be promoting two alternatives to cracking the same nut.
First off, Google Friend Connect hasn't gained much traction since it was announced last year, mainly because it doesn't do much. Yes, people can log into your site using their Google identity (as used for GMail, Adwords etc.) but the GFC elements are really standalone on a site, with no integration with any existing user identities you may have. In other words, if you already get people to log in then they now do it twice. And you don't get any of the credentials that go with the identity, as they are only ever really logging into GFC, albeit on your site. Mainly to comment and add ratings. Pretty lame stuff compared to a more functional and useful Facebook Connect.
Well Google is attempting to make GFC even more enticing for website owners by enabling the addition of a "Social Bar", which can appear at the top or bottom or your site's pages, providing the login, commenting and ratings capabilities within it. It can be deployed on single web pages or across the whole site. Its aim is to make GFC's features easier to apply across a site without being too intrusive. I've taken a look and it seems to do that job well, although it doesn't add any new features to the capability set (more info here: http://googlesocialweb.blogspot.com/2009/02/social-bar-for-your-site.html). Although we have GFC support on my our own WeCanDo.BIZ website, we won't be adding the Social Bar as I don't wish it to be that intrusive -- we have our own login which takes presendence as it has more functionality behind it. I can see how the GFC Social Bar would work for sites without any user accounts on it currently, however -- it's a quick and easy way to add social elements to a simple website.
With this initiative underway, it was perhaps surprising then that at the recent regular OpenID get together, this time hosted by Facebook, Google and social network aggregator Plaxo showed a hybrid of OpenID, OAuth and Google Contacts API which does a much better job of achieving what most people expected Google Friend Connect might offer them.
In essence the new OpenID workflow enables users of other sites -- it was Plaxo in this instance -- to login to OpenID, a portable identity they should be able to use anywhere, with just a few clicks and no need for passwords, an important advancement compared to the complex usernames and passing back and forth that has hampered OpenID's adoption to date. Further, during the authentication process, you also have the option of specifying you want to bring your Google Contacts (whatever THEY are!) over to the site to establish a relationship with them on the new site. Just what everyone has been asking for, although many would rather see the repository of user identities and contacts -- the "social graph" -- held by a trusted independent third party. More information on the hybrid here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_plaxo_openid_oauth_usability.php.
So which of these should website owners be using to "socialise" their websites? Well, OpenID implementations available today should be avoided as they are just too complex. Facebook Connect is the only thing you can use today enabling true authentication into a sites own login using an existing identity with the ability to bring existing connections, and it's nice and simple -- but the chance it may be re-architected to support OpenID concerns me that anything you add to your site today may need replacing soon. The new way to authenticate using OpenID as shown by Google with Plaxo has great potential, although Google hasn't released the code to developers to enable the est of us to do it -- it's just a demo for now. Which means they'll continue to flog Google Friend Connect in the meantime, possibly with a limited shelf life if their plans do include releasing the much better alternative above.
My recommendation? It's likely that OpenID and OAuth will win out, but hold off for now until the main movers and shakers decide how its best done. Moving on this now will mean a short term and compromised solution when everyone else seems happy to sit and wait.
I'd love to read your own thoughts on this.
UPDATE: Just read some further articles on the OpenID User Experience summit hosted by Facebook and noted an interesting presentation by Google's Breno de Medeiros. His subject? How there needs to be a neutral 3rd party method of figuring out who users' identity providers are without asking them explicitly, something like how the DNS system works. I agree in part -- although, as posted above, most people would rather see the neutral 3rd party issuing the identities and holding the social graph. If no one can agree on that then a DNS type approach helps. This does, unfortunately, muddy the Data Portability waters further though -- and make the likelihood that we'll see a stable way forward in the short-term less likely. Keep holding off!
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Oh it used to be so simple. Google came out early as a supporter of open standards in Data Portability, turning over its various initiatives in this space, like OpenSocial, to non-profit for greater good. Facebook took an opposing view and launched Facebook Connect, enabling webmasters everywhere to add code to their sites giving Facebook users the ability to login to any site using their existing identity and of posting their activity back to Facebook. Google answered with its own equivalent, Google Friend Connect. People everywhere debated which was better and came out declaring which camp was getting their support support (by the way, although Facebook Connect is more functional, Google Friend Connect one it on open standards support).
Fast forward six months and things look different. Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect still exist (and get enhancements, see below), but Facebook has since joined the OpenID crowd -- although it is yet to make FBC OpenID compliant. Weirder still, Google, seemingly having won over its main rival in the space to its way of thinking, now seems to be promoting two alternatives to cracking the same nut.
First off, Google Friend Connect hasn't gained much traction since it was announced last year, mainly because it doesn't do much. Yes, people can log into your site using their Google identity (as used for GMail, Adwords etc.) but the GFC elements are really standalone on a site, with no integration with any existing user identities you may have. In other words, if you already get people to log in then they now do it twice. And you don't get any of the credentials that go with the identity, as they are only ever really logging into GFC, albeit on your site. Mainly to comment and add ratings. Pretty lame stuff compared to a more functional and useful Facebook Connect.
Well Google is attempting to make GFC even more enticing for website owners by enabling the addition of a "Social Bar", which can appear at the top or bottom or your site's pages, providing the login, commenting and ratings capabilities within it. It can be deployed on single web pages or across the whole site. Its aim is to make GFC's features easier to apply across a site without being too intrusive. I've taken a look and it seems to do that job well, although it doesn't add any new features to the capability set (more info here: http://googlesocialweb.blogspot.com/2009/02/social-bar-for-your-site.html). Although we have GFC support on my our own WeCanDo.BIZ website, we won't be adding the Social Bar as I don't wish it to be that intrusive -- we have our own login which takes presendence as it has more functionality behind it. I can see how the GFC Social Bar would work for sites without any user accounts on it currently, however -- it's a quick and easy way to add social elements to a simple website.
With this initiative underway, it was perhaps surprising then that at the recent regular OpenID get together, this time hosted by Facebook, Google and social network aggregator Plaxo showed a hybrid of OpenID, OAuth and Google Contacts API which does a much better job of achieving what most people expected Google Friend Connect might offer them.
In essence the new OpenID workflow enables users of other sites -- it was Plaxo in this instance -- to login to OpenID, a portable identity they should be able to use anywhere, with just a few clicks and no need for passwords, an important advancement compared to the complex usernames and passing back and forth that has hampered OpenID's adoption to date. Further, during the authentication process, you also have the option of specifying you want to bring your Google Contacts (whatever THEY are!) over to the site to establish a relationship with them on the new site. Just what everyone has been asking for, although many would rather see the repository of user identities and contacts -- the "social graph" -- held by a trusted independent third party. More information on the hybrid here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_plaxo_openid_oauth_usability.php.
So which of these should website owners be using to "socialise" their websites? Well, OpenID implementations available today should be avoided as they are just too complex. Facebook Connect is the only thing you can use today enabling true authentication into a sites own login using an existing identity with the ability to bring existing connections, and it's nice and simple -- but the chance it may be re-architected to support OpenID concerns me that anything you add to your site today may need replacing soon. The new way to authenticate using OpenID as shown by Google with Plaxo has great potential, although Google hasn't released the code to developers to enable the est of us to do it -- it's just a demo for now. Which means they'll continue to flog Google Friend Connect in the meantime, possibly with a limited shelf life if their plans do include releasing the much better alternative above.
My recommendation? It's likely that OpenID and OAuth will win out, but hold off for now until the main movers and shakers decide how its best done. Moving on this now will mean a short term and compromised solution when everyone else seems happy to sit and wait.
I'd love to read your own thoughts on this.
UPDATE: Just read some further articles on the OpenID User Experience summit hosted by Facebook and noted an interesting presentation by Google's Breno de Medeiros. His subject? How there needs to be a neutral 3rd party method of figuring out who users' identity providers are without asking them explicitly, something like how the DNS system works. I agree in part -- although, as posted above, most people would rather see the neutral 3rd party issuing the identities and holding the social graph. If no one can agree on that then a DNS type approach helps. This does, unfortunately, muddy the Data Portability waters further though -- and make the likelihood that we'll see a stable way forward in the short-term less likely. Keep holding off!
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Friday 6 February 2009, 12:00 PM
Sleeping With The Enemy: Facebook surprises all by hosting OpenID summit
These are crazy times in which we live and nothing seems crazier than Facebook welcoming Google, IBM, PayPal and Yahoo to discuss OpenID!
When I read the article by Caroline McCarthy on CNET (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10157980-36.html) I thought it might be a joke. But it's not 1 April. It would seem that Facebook really has signed up to the OpenID foundation and, further, will be hosting a summit later this month.
Now regular readers of my blog will know that OpenID and Google's initiaves to make it usable, such as Google Friend Connect, have been going head-to-head with Facebook's own social web operability answer Facebook Connect. With an announcement from one side, so comes an immediate salvo from the other. It's been my opinion that Facebook Connect is superior in most ways, although lacking the "open-ness" of its not-for-profit-but-in-the-interests-of-the-greater-good rival. This last point has put many off from going the Facebook Connect route. Now it would seem Zuckerberg and crew are keen to change that (more in Caroline's article).
Of course, this may all be a clever ploy to derail the OpenID initiative; or at least try and keep it one step behind Facebook's own efforts. But it could also mean a truly common standard for a login across the whole social web, with "friends" also being portable across networks and sites. Something everyone would welcome, site owners and users alike.
Still, it seems an odd move in many ways, in spite of claims that Facebook has always had its fans of OpenID internally (if that's so, why not develop Facebook Connect to open standards -- which have been around for more than a year -- in the first place?).
I wonder whether the recent decision by the W3C to start a Social Web Interoperability Incubator Group to steer a direction in protocols used for interoperability among social networks (which is going to work with the Open Web Foundation, the DiSo Project, and DataPortability.org, all of whom advocate OpenID and OAuth) had any influence of Facebook's decision to cosy up to their arch-rivals?
What do you think?
We were going to deploy facebook Connect on the WeCanDo.BIZ website, but I feel inclined to hold back now until its clearer on whether it will continue in its current form.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
When I read the article by Caroline McCarthy on CNET (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10157980-36.html) I thought it might be a joke. But it's not 1 April. It would seem that Facebook really has signed up to the OpenID foundation and, further, will be hosting a summit later this month.
Now regular readers of my blog will know that OpenID and Google's initiaves to make it usable, such as Google Friend Connect, have been going head-to-head with Facebook's own social web operability answer Facebook Connect. With an announcement from one side, so comes an immediate salvo from the other. It's been my opinion that Facebook Connect is superior in most ways, although lacking the "open-ness" of its not-for-profit-but-in-the-interests-of-the-greater-good rival. This last point has put many off from going the Facebook Connect route. Now it would seem Zuckerberg and crew are keen to change that (more in Caroline's article).
Of course, this may all be a clever ploy to derail the OpenID initiative; or at least try and keep it one step behind Facebook's own efforts. But it could also mean a truly common standard for a login across the whole social web, with "friends" also being portable across networks and sites. Something everyone would welcome, site owners and users alike.
Still, it seems an odd move in many ways, in spite of claims that Facebook has always had its fans of OpenID internally (if that's so, why not develop Facebook Connect to open standards -- which have been around for more than a year -- in the first place?).
I wonder whether the recent decision by the W3C to start a Social Web Interoperability Incubator Group to steer a direction in protocols used for interoperability among social networks (which is going to work with the Open Web Foundation, the DiSo Project, and DataPortability.org, all of whom advocate OpenID and OAuth) had any influence of Facebook's decision to cosy up to their arch-rivals?
What do you think?
We were going to deploy facebook Connect on the WeCanDo.BIZ website, but I feel inclined to hold back now until its clearer on whether it will continue in its current form.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Saturday 31 January 2009, 12:42 PM
Unified login, CRM 2.0 take small steps forward
Important announcements this week to help OpenID catch Facebook Connect; and to help bring Facebook and Salesforce.com closer to delivering CRM 2.0.
I wrote at the end of last year about how Facebook Connect was winning the race to get close to a unified login across the web, where one set of credentials will take you anywhere. It was not because anyone wants Facebook to win this battle -- they don't, in fact, because Facebook remains proprietary, owns your data once entered and is a long way from being open and fair -- but because OpenID has always been hard to use and Google Friend Connect is a little lame in what it offers. Well the game has moved on yet again.
This week Google and Plaxo have announced that they've brough together OpenID, OAuth and the Google Contacts API to enable much simpler sign in, with the ability to bring contacts with you when you join new networks too.
(A great description of how it works can be found here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/10036)
This certainly gets close to matching Facebook Connect in most way, but misses out on two key features. First, there are no details of how other sites on we internet can use this functionality to benefit their members (like they can with FBC, albeit with some pain to get it implemented). Secondly, Plaxo and Google lack a central site with a common contact list and where details of activities on remote sites can be posted back to. OK, Google has quite a lot of e-mail addresses and Plaxo has 20 million users willing to volunteer more than that, but even combined the lack the cache of a network of 150 million people and 20% of the population logging in to check what is happening with the contacts they have (activities from FBC sites could be included in the Facebook newsfeed, driving traffic).
It's a step in the right direction -- and one to be applauded given how much more open this solution is compared to Facebook's -- but Zuckerberg still leads the field in this area.
Another important step this week was the involvement of a third small party in beinging together a flagship CRM 2.0 exmaple that everyone can relate to.
Software vendor Appirio, which announced an offering called Referral Management Solution, a set of technologies to help Salesforce.com exploit Facebook for viral marketing and employee recruitment.
The tools search friend profiles and tell users which connections may be best for sales campaigns, marketing promotions or to approach as candidates for roles. It's an important step towards what I have previously called "the perfect business application" where a CRM system can mine the data people happily volunteer on social networks.
Appirio went for Facebook first because of its scale -- no doubt the promise of tapping into Facebook's 150 million users was in their mind when they priced the solution at $25,000 for an annual subscription -- you need volumes for that to be economic for most organisations.
If the cost doesn't make you question this as a way forward, privacy concerns might (although these can be overcome on Facebook by customers opting in to an application, as with all other data sharing apps), as may a question whether the "right" data is on the networks to be exploited in the first place. Whereas Facebook is great for consumer contact, it wouldn't work so well for companies with a B2B focus -- but then LinkedIn, which is what most people would think of, actually stores and shares very little contact information.
What do you think of how these two technologies will change the way people use Web 2.0?
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
I wrote at the end of last year about how Facebook Connect was winning the race to get close to a unified login across the web, where one set of credentials will take you anywhere. It was not because anyone wants Facebook to win this battle -- they don't, in fact, because Facebook remains proprietary, owns your data once entered and is a long way from being open and fair -- but because OpenID has always been hard to use and Google Friend Connect is a little lame in what it offers. Well the game has moved on yet again.
This week Google and Plaxo have announced that they've brough together OpenID, OAuth and the Google Contacts API to enable much simpler sign in, with the ability to bring contacts with you when you join new networks too.
(A great description of how it works can be found here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/10036)
This certainly gets close to matching Facebook Connect in most way, but misses out on two key features. First, there are no details of how other sites on we internet can use this functionality to benefit their members (like they can with FBC, albeit with some pain to get it implemented). Secondly, Plaxo and Google lack a central site with a common contact list and where details of activities on remote sites can be posted back to. OK, Google has quite a lot of e-mail addresses and Plaxo has 20 million users willing to volunteer more than that, but even combined the lack the cache of a network of 150 million people and 20% of the population logging in to check what is happening with the contacts they have (activities from FBC sites could be included in the Facebook newsfeed, driving traffic).
It's a step in the right direction -- and one to be applauded given how much more open this solution is compared to Facebook's -- but Zuckerberg still leads the field in this area.
Another important step this week was the involvement of a third small party in beinging together a flagship CRM 2.0 exmaple that everyone can relate to.
Software vendor Appirio, which announced an offering called Referral Management Solution, a set of technologies to help Salesforce.com exploit Facebook for viral marketing and employee recruitment.
The tools search friend profiles and tell users which connections may be best for sales campaigns, marketing promotions or to approach as candidates for roles. It's an important step towards what I have previously called "the perfect business application" where a CRM system can mine the data people happily volunteer on social networks.
Appirio went for Facebook first because of its scale -- no doubt the promise of tapping into Facebook's 150 million users was in their mind when they priced the solution at $25,000 for an annual subscription -- you need volumes for that to be economic for most organisations.
If the cost doesn't make you question this as a way forward, privacy concerns might (although these can be overcome on Facebook by customers opting in to an application, as with all other data sharing apps), as may a question whether the "right" data is on the networks to be exploited in the first place. Whereas Facebook is great for consumer contact, it wouldn't work so well for companies with a B2B focus -- but then LinkedIn, which is what most people would think of, actually stores and shares very little contact information.
What do you think of how these two technologies will change the way people use Web 2.0?
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Wednesday 7 January 2009, 9:51 AM
My Top 3 Web 2.0 predictions for 2009
My forecast for the year ahead. And I continue to stick my neck out on one specific prediction...
Happy New Year ZDNet readers! With a plummeting end to a roller coaster 2008 (and I don't enjoy the plummets) it was nice to get away on holiday for three weeks. Which gave me some time to reflect on the year past and make some predictions for the year ahead. Here are my Top 3 -- let me know whether you agree or disagree:
1. Twitter goes mainstream
OK, so the column inch thief of the past month didn't end the year on a great note -- I returned to the UK to read numerous news stories on 30-odd celebrity Twitter accounts being hacked in a very obvious way. And 2008 also saw its fair share of downtime for the service. But in spite of that the Twitter user community grew substantially (at a guess from 3 million to 6 million plus); its biggest fans got hooked; and it has spawned a healthy developer community. Even though no one is yet making any money from it.
But that might not matter. My position on Twitter altered significantly over 2008 (look back through my posts to see me commenting on its possible demise earlier in the year!) and I now wonder if it needs to make money at all. Maybe Twitter is, in fact, a possible new Open Source "transport" upon which vendors could build applications to enable it to be used for specific aims, such as marketing communications, customer support or even, God forbid, mass mailing? Could Twitter be E-mail Lite?
Either way, more and more people are "getting" Twitter and it's a fairly safe bet that those and more will be adding Twitter to their Facebook accounts and blogs to enable quick and easy commenting, as well as other utilisations akin to how we use SMS on mobile phones and used to use IM instead of send e-mails. I also guess that it will continue to reign over any possible competitor -- I just don't see anything challenging its position for a while.
All in all, a good year ahead for Biz Stone and his colleagues!
2. Web 2.0 meets CRM for the perfect business application
I've written on this before so I am not going to regurgitate what you can read in my other posts. Suffice to say that adding "social" elements to Customer Relationship Management makes, in my opinion, the perfect business application.
I am not alone in thinking this, with Salesforce.com now touting a Facebook Connect option for their Force.com platform and SAP, either behind or ahead of SFDC depending on your point of view, investing in LinkedIn.
Visit any website focused towards customer management and CRM and it will be full of talk of CRM 2.0 -- but is anything actually happening? Well, when it comes to practical demonstrations of CRM 2.0 in action, Salesforce.com predictably led the way at their November Dreamforce conference with a presentation showing user forms in Facebook where the data found its way into their CRM system. But it was pretty lame. It can't be hard to mine user data automatically if that user is a "friend" (or has otherwise given permission through membership of a group of fan page)? And what about some practical B2B use, like collecting user comments from Twitter or mining LinkedIn data?
I have little doubt it will come this year and there will be massive kudos to the CRM vendor that lights the path, having mastered the data privacy concerns along the way (and convinced Facebook to share "social graph" data). I am not going to make any guesses as to who will pick up the baton and run with it fastest, other than it won't be Microsoft and Dynamics CRM...
3. The age of the niche Social Network
If 2008 was all about everyones' parents joining Facebook and the word "Twitter" entering everyday language, 2009 will be about the growth of niche Social Networks appealing to specific needs or interests.
Now I have been crowing about niche SocNets for nearly a year and as yet they haven't really taken off. Ask most people if they want to join a network specifically for geneologists, financial advisers, public speakers or sales leads and they'll tell you that they are already on Facebook or LinkedIn and don't need to join any others (in spite of them potentially better serving the needs which saw them networking in the first place). But the interest they have in the specific use of Social Networks that led to them adding applications or joining groups last year will drive growth in stand-alone niche networks focused towards those interests in 2009.
Why the different approach this year? Well we can thank Facebook Connect largely. The main objection to joining networks outside of the mainstream networks to which most people are already members is that it takes time, means yet another password to remember and involves the cumbersome task of building a contact/friend list from scratch. Facebook Connect smashes all of these objections in one go with its ability for one click registration on new sites, using your existing Facebook credentials; plus an ability to bring over your existing contacts to the new network. It even posts back news feed items to Facebook that relate to your activity on the remote networks, so it helps you keep on top of what is happening on each of them in one place.
When the roll out of Facebook Connect starts in earnest, expect niche Social Networks to be perceived as extensions to Facebook, rather than yet another site you need to sign up for.
I'd love you read your thoughts on whether you agree.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Happy New Year ZDNet readers! With a plummeting end to a roller coaster 2008 (and I don't enjoy the plummets) it was nice to get away on holiday for three weeks. Which gave me some time to reflect on the year past and make some predictions for the year ahead. Here are my Top 3 -- let me know whether you agree or disagree:
1. Twitter goes mainstream
OK, so the column inch thief of the past month didn't end the year on a great note -- I returned to the UK to read numerous news stories on 30-odd celebrity Twitter accounts being hacked in a very obvious way. And 2008 also saw its fair share of downtime for the service. But in spite of that the Twitter user community grew substantially (at a guess from 3 million to 6 million plus); its biggest fans got hooked; and it has spawned a healthy developer community. Even though no one is yet making any money from it.
But that might not matter. My position on Twitter altered significantly over 2008 (look back through my posts to see me commenting on its possible demise earlier in the year!) and I now wonder if it needs to make money at all. Maybe Twitter is, in fact, a possible new Open Source "transport" upon which vendors could build applications to enable it to be used for specific aims, such as marketing communications, customer support or even, God forbid, mass mailing? Could Twitter be E-mail Lite?
Either way, more and more people are "getting" Twitter and it's a fairly safe bet that those and more will be adding Twitter to their Facebook accounts and blogs to enable quick and easy commenting, as well as other utilisations akin to how we use SMS on mobile phones and used to use IM instead of send e-mails. I also guess that it will continue to reign over any possible competitor -- I just don't see anything challenging its position for a while.
All in all, a good year ahead for Biz Stone and his colleagues!
2. Web 2.0 meets CRM for the perfect business application
I've written on this before so I am not going to regurgitate what you can read in my other posts. Suffice to say that adding "social" elements to Customer Relationship Management makes, in my opinion, the perfect business application.
I am not alone in thinking this, with Salesforce.com now touting a Facebook Connect option for their Force.com platform and SAP, either behind or ahead of SFDC depending on your point of view, investing in LinkedIn.
Visit any website focused towards customer management and CRM and it will be full of talk of CRM 2.0 -- but is anything actually happening? Well, when it comes to practical demonstrations of CRM 2.0 in action, Salesforce.com predictably led the way at their November Dreamforce conference with a presentation showing user forms in Facebook where the data found its way into their CRM system. But it was pretty lame. It can't be hard to mine user data automatically if that user is a "friend" (or has otherwise given permission through membership of a group of fan page)? And what about some practical B2B use, like collecting user comments from Twitter or mining LinkedIn data?
I have little doubt it will come this year and there will be massive kudos to the CRM vendor that lights the path, having mastered the data privacy concerns along the way (and convinced Facebook to share "social graph" data). I am not going to make any guesses as to who will pick up the baton and run with it fastest, other than it won't be Microsoft and Dynamics CRM...
3. The age of the niche Social Network
If 2008 was all about everyones' parents joining Facebook and the word "Twitter" entering everyday language, 2009 will be about the growth of niche Social Networks appealing to specific needs or interests.
Now I have been crowing about niche SocNets for nearly a year and as yet they haven't really taken off. Ask most people if they want to join a network specifically for geneologists, financial advisers, public speakers or sales leads and they'll tell you that they are already on Facebook or LinkedIn and don't need to join any others (in spite of them potentially better serving the needs which saw them networking in the first place). But the interest they have in the specific use of Social Networks that led to them adding applications or joining groups last year will drive growth in stand-alone niche networks focused towards those interests in 2009.
Why the different approach this year? Well we can thank Facebook Connect largely. The main objection to joining networks outside of the mainstream networks to which most people are already members is that it takes time, means yet another password to remember and involves the cumbersome task of building a contact/friend list from scratch. Facebook Connect smashes all of these objections in one go with its ability for one click registration on new sites, using your existing Facebook credentials; plus an ability to bring over your existing contacts to the new network. It even posts back news feed items to Facebook that relate to your activity on the remote networks, so it helps you keep on top of what is happening on each of them in one place.
When the roll out of Facebook Connect starts in earnest, expect niche Social Networks to be perceived as extensions to Facebook, rather than yet another site you need to sign up for.
I'd love you read your thoughts on whether you agree.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Saturday 6 December 2008, 1:57 PM
Google Friend Connect increases spam risk
It's too easy to send unsolicited messages using Google Friend Connect without knowing it.
We added a test page to our website this week so I could try out Google Friend Connect, as I wanted to see for myself what the implications were for webmasters and users as the GFC "gadgets" gradually rolling out across the web. If you aren't aware of GFC, it is Google's attempt to "socialise" the web by enabling social networking type features to be easily added to existing websites, whether they have existing communities or not.
If you want to take a look at our test page you can find it at http://www.wecando.biz/googlefc.php.
Here's what it enables you to do:
- "log in" to our website so that your identify can be seen to all others using GFC to log in; and you can see the identities of all those who have also logged in using the method
- "friend" other GFC users on our website, which will add them as friends on other websites supporting GFC
- engage in using other "gadgets" (what everyone else calls widgets) which currently allow Facebook-like "wall" comments, ratings and basic games (we have only the ratings one active)
- associate identities you have on other OpenID sites with your GFC account (which is, in fact, based on your membership of Google for Mail, Analytics, or whatever; or your Orkut or OpenID memberships)
- invite your other contacts in other GFC associated networks (e.g. Plaxo) to come and connect with you on that site
- post details of that site to a contact or e-mail list or back to MySpace, Facebook and a few other social networks
All fairly useful. But the thing that concerns me is that when you send invitations or links to websites back to the connections you have on Plaxo, for example, rather than them getting a message in Plaxo they receive an e-mail; and the e-mail doesn't make the source apparent, so it can't be seen why or how they've been selected to get your e-mail. It looks just like a random e-mail inviting them to a website.
I have used this feature of Google Friend Conenct only once to let my Plaxo connections know they can take a look at our GFC implementation. Many are interested in social media so I thought they'd like a peep. But I had no idea they'd get a random e-mail from me, without it apparent I was using GFC to send it, or that I had selected them from a Plaxo connections list.
What difference does this make? Well, I have some connections on Plaxo that are a little tenuous and to those guys this looked like spam. In fact, one of those contacts reacted badly because it looked to them just like I had dug out their e-mail address and sent an entirely random e-mail to look at my website, the "context" in which I had sent it not being apparent.
And to be fair to myself, I wasn't aware they'd be getting an e-mail with no reference points in it when I sent it.
I hate unsolicited mail messages as much as the next man, but GFC makes it easy to send messages and links to website with just a few clicks, without the implications of what you are doing being very apparent.
Of course, I get invitations to try this and that all the time on facebook and it that community it doesn't bother me as much as e-mails doing the same thing. But without a central network to post messages back to, as facebook has for Facebook Connect, Google is (I am assuming) unwittingly helping to contribute to a surge in in spam e-mails out without the sender really being aware of the implications of their simple actions.
If this can happen to me, I am sure it can easily happen to others. Expect other people playing with or finding their feet in Google Friend Connect to start generating a level of unsolicited e-mails that they have no idea about; and for it to get worse as more and more websites add and support GFC.
This is something for users, webmasters and IT departments to watch out for!
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
We added a test page to our website this week so I could try out Google Friend Connect, as I wanted to see for myself what the implications were for webmasters and users as the GFC "gadgets" gradually rolling out across the web. If you aren't aware of GFC, it is Google's attempt to "socialise" the web by enabling social networking type features to be easily added to existing websites, whether they have existing communities or not.
If you want to take a look at our test page you can find it at http://www.wecando.biz/googlefc.php.
Here's what it enables you to do:
- "log in" to our website so that your identify can be seen to all others using GFC to log in; and you can see the identities of all those who have also logged in using the method
- "friend" other GFC users on our website, which will add them as friends on other websites supporting GFC
- engage in using other "gadgets" (what everyone else calls widgets) which currently allow Facebook-like "wall" comments, ratings and basic games (we have only the ratings one active)
- associate identities you have on other OpenID sites with your GFC account (which is, in fact, based on your membership of Google for Mail, Analytics, or whatever; or your Orkut or OpenID memberships)
- invite your other contacts in other GFC associated networks (e.g. Plaxo) to come and connect with you on that site
- post details of that site to a contact or e-mail list or back to MySpace, Facebook and a few other social networks
All fairly useful. But the thing that concerns me is that when you send invitations or links to websites back to the connections you have on Plaxo, for example, rather than them getting a message in Plaxo they receive an e-mail; and the e-mail doesn't make the source apparent, so it can't be seen why or how they've been selected to get your e-mail. It looks just like a random e-mail inviting them to a website.
I have used this feature of Google Friend Conenct only once to let my Plaxo connections know they can take a look at our GFC implementation. Many are interested in social media so I thought they'd like a peep. But I had no idea they'd get a random e-mail from me, without it apparent I was using GFC to send it, or that I had selected them from a Plaxo connections list.
What difference does this make? Well, I have some connections on Plaxo that are a little tenuous and to those guys this looked like spam. In fact, one of those contacts reacted badly because it looked to them just like I had dug out their e-mail address and sent an entirely random e-mail to look at my website, the "context" in which I had sent it not being apparent.
And to be fair to myself, I wasn't aware they'd be getting an e-mail with no reference points in it when I sent it.
I hate unsolicited mail messages as much as the next man, but GFC makes it easy to send messages and links to website with just a few clicks, without the implications of what you are doing being very apparent.
Of course, I get invitations to try this and that all the time on facebook and it that community it doesn't bother me as much as e-mails doing the same thing. But without a central network to post messages back to, as facebook has for Facebook Connect, Google is (I am assuming) unwittingly helping to contribute to a surge in in spam e-mails out without the sender really being aware of the implications of their simple actions.
If this can happen to me, I am sure it can easily happen to others. Expect other people playing with or finding their feet in Google Friend Connect to start generating a level of unsolicited e-mails that they have no idea about; and for it to get worse as more and more websites add and support GFC.
This is something for users, webmasters and IT departments to watch out for!
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
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