Google’s Friend Connect

So now Google jumps into the fray with their Friend Connect, a universal profile that will allow people to maintain one single profile across a number of different social sites. This concept has been talked about for ages now, and I guess it’s good that we’re seeing it come into fruition, with a number of other high profile sites such as Facebook and Myspace making similar plays.

It’s all about data portability, and that has to be a Good Thing, but I really do wonder how each of these sites intend to capture those ‘first use’ users that haven’t stepped into the social web world? Surely the valuations of all the major social players are based on the numbers of people registering with them, their data, and the friends that they bring with them – and as such, are we going to see a shift in how we measure their success on the back of this?

Via: Mashable

Yahoo oneConnect aims to draw together your social connections

…and allow you to keep in touch with what’s happening across all of your different social networks – via your mobile phone. Really interesting – I just hope they have web integration as well as it would be nice to familiarise with a single aggregation service across multiple platforms.

Link.

I’ve recently been questioning RSS as a channel for absorbing the ‘noise’ of different networks. For me, I’d like to separate out my social interaction (which I see as an ongoing social dialogue) from my day-to-day feed consumption. It just feels too cluttered.

And one other thing I’ve noticed is the value of a good email newsletter. Lo-tech, huh??! I subscribe to the daily Urban Junkies newsletter, and it’s a really well crafted piece of content that points me at some of the best things that’re going on in London. If I had the RSS feed it probably wouldn’t keep so much of my attention – which makes me think that the increased relevance and personalisation of content is key for many of the different ‘trusted voice’ web services that are out there at the moment.

Exhaust data

This is an interesting and thought-provoking piece on the nature of the communication that flows between people using so-called ‘micro-blogging’ tools. Interesting because of the number of times I’ve heard people criticise the kind of “banal, pointless chatter” that goes on through channels like Twitter or Facebook. Am I really interested in the minutiae of my friends and colleagues’ lives?  

A social network for your home

Interesting piece at the Guardian on the future of everybody’s favourite mobile time-destroyer – the Blackberry.

For me, it’s the bit about becoming a social network for families that’s really interesting – despite not being one of the Crackberry Crew (and having been many times at the receiving end of the ADO-like condition brought on by its beep-vibration…”Oh, sorry. What were you saying….?”) – you can see how this kind of tech could bring people closer together…and as boundaries of family get fuzzier, extend into our social neighbourhoods too.

Shared diaries though. Hmmm, I once bought into this idea, and suggested it to someone close to me who said “Why would I want to see what you’re up to?”. An interesting point. And these days, do people really plan out their time that much in advance, or rely on ad hoc gatherings facilitated by text message?