Online Personal Finance Traffic Soars

Thanks NetBanker for this overview of personal online finance sites

Online Personal Finance Traffic Soars; Mint Passes One Million Unique Visitors

January is always a great month for personal finance. Consumers working off holiday spending binges and/or attempting to live up to New Years resolutions naturally find their way to personal financial management sites. It's especially pronounced this year as consumers try to better understand their spending and manage for the downturn.

So it's not surprising to see that traffic grew by 300,000 unique visitors in January (+20%) compared to December. Total traffic was up 4.5-fold at sites open for a year or more (see Table 1). Including the class of 2008, total traffic was 2.0 million, a 5-fold increase from a year ago.

Highlights:

• Mint had another great month, increasing site visitors by about 200,000, a five-fold increase in the past year. Mint's gain in January was more than that total traffic of all nine 2008 newcomers combined. Mint had a 60% market share of the total of 1.8 million visitors in the category, about the same as December.
• Geezeo continued its wicked pace, growing 30% during the month, and posting a 12-fold increase over a year ago.
• Quicken Online, which launched in January 2008, more than doubling to 150,000 visitors compared to December. However, traffic at Quicken is hard to compare to other sites due to the massive traffic at its parent site: for example, <quicken.intuit.com> received 1.2 million visitors and <intuit.com> website had more than 10 million.
• Wesabe was the only site in those open for a year or more that turned in a traffic decline, falling more than 30% in the month. However, keep in mind the Compete estimates are derived from an online panel and are not always accurate, especially for sites in the low six-figures or less. The company said that it had record page views in January. That includes both the traffic from the U.S., measured by Compete, and international visitors.
• BudgetTracker also turned in amazing results, nearly doubling its traffic to an estimated 27,000 visitors.
• Of the 2008 startups (see Table 2), Thrive was the only one showing strong growth, increasing 50% over the previous month. Friday the company was acquired by Lending Tree for an undisclosed amount.

Table 1: Traffic at online PFMs launched more than 1 year ago

	Jan 2009	Dec 2008	Jan 2008	YOY Chg
Mint	1.1 mil	890,000	200,000	5.2x
Geezeo	220,000	170,000	18,000	12x
Yodlee	120,000	100,000	84,000	44%
Finicity/Mvelopes	100,000	71,000	91,000	10%
Wesabe	89,000	140,000	56,000	60%
BudgetTracker	27,000	14,000	15,000	86%
Buxfer	22,000	15,000	13,000	78%
PearBudget	12,000	7,600	4,200	3x
ClearCheckbook	11,000	9,100	4,600	2.3x
Total	1.7 mil	1.4 mil	490,000	4.5x

Table 2: Traffic at the online PFM class of 2008

	Jan 2009	Dec 2008	Month Chg
Quicken Online	150,000	53,000	1.8x
PNC Virtual Wallet	41,000	45,000	(9%)
Rudder	39,000	61,000	(35%)
Thrive	21,000	14,000	52%
Scred	2,600	630	4x
Expensr	2,500	3,700	(32%)
RateSurfer	2,100	3,600	(41%)
Expensify	1,400	600	2.5x
Banzai	1,300	1,500	(15%)
GreenSherpa	400	ina	--
iThryv	210	2,100	(90%)
Total	260,000	185,000	41%

Source: Compete, 7 Feb 2009; estimates of monthly unique visitors from the United States

*The percent changes were calculated from the underlying data set and due to rounding of the monthly traffic figures, the percentages may look slightly off

Note: For more information on the market, see our Online Banking Report on Personal Finance Features and Online Banking Report on Social Personal Finance.

Tarpipe begins to tackle personal content overload

Thanks Mr. Cracknell at LittleLucifer for this post from cnet

Posted by Rafe Needleman

Tarpipe is one of the most curious experiments in social media that I've seen lately. It takes personal content (e-mail messages, primarily) as input, and can shunt it to one or more desinations, transforming it in the process. For example, I created a Tarpipe e-mail address that will take a pictures I send it and posts it to Flickr, update Twitter with a link to the Flickr page, and put the picture and the Twitter URL in an Evernote record for me. All I have to do is send the e-mail.

Tarpipe looks a lot like Yahoo Pipes. They work in similar ways: Users drag service and function boxes around on the workspace and connect them with blue tubes to control the flow of data. But Yahoo is about taking inputs from several sources and then creating a universal RSS output. Tarpipe is more about directly updating personal content services like Twitter, Flickr, Friendfeed, Delicious, and Evernote, which Yahoo Pipes doesn't do. The service has the potential to be the answer to the lament I first talked about in The looming crisis: Personal syndication overload.

This workflow takes an e-mailed photo attachment, sends it to Flickr, posts a TinyURL link to it on Twitter, and archives the photo and the Twitter link in my Evernote account.

The app will currently update several personal services: The ones I mentioned, plus a few others like Tumblr, Plurk, and Jaiku. But one problem with the system right now is that, unless you are a programmer, it's inflexible as to inputs. You can e-mail Tarpipe items, and manipulate that data. You can also use an online form for input, but you cannot create complex workflows around form data, other than to direct it to the services you've connected to your account. (The developer interface is apparently quite robust, though.)

Twitterpipe: Coming
One thing end users can't do, at least not yet, is ask Tarpipe to monitor a personal RSS feed (like a Twitter account) and then process that for further transmission to other services. RSS "slurping" is coming, Tarpipe creator Bruno Pedro told me.

Tarpipe keeps a log of all the data it's handled for you.

That's one of the things I'm waiting for. I would like to continue to use the input methods I'm comfortable with (for Twitter, that means Twhirl) and have Tarpipe selectively send my output to other sources based on content (perhaps using hashtags).

The other thing I'm waiting for, which Pedro is working on, is community aggregation. When this is running, you'll be able to monitor and reply to your audience as they comment on your posts. This solves the issue of fractured community for people who contribute their work or thoughts to multiple sources. The concept is this: Tarpipe will track all the items it posts on your behalf. It will monitor those posts at their new homes for replies from other users. It will be able to notify you of those replies so you can participate in discussions that spring up. (Related: MyBlogLog; Typepad Comments.)

The system may also help you connect conversations together that are on different services. For example, if I use Tarpipe to post a photo to Flickr and a link to the photo on Twitter, and then the conversation picks up Twitter, Tarpipe may be able to attach that discussion to the Flickr page.

Pedro told me that Tarpipe may also get features to help its users meld their social networks together on the various services they are signed up for. He calls this the "unified social graph," and says, "You'll be able to follow your social network, invite your contacts to Tarpipe and send messages to specific people."

And finally, he's working on adding new content destinations to Tarpipe, like Facebook, Myspace, Hi5, Picasa, and video sharing services. Richer programmatic access (more APIs) is in the works, too.

An interesting effort
Tarpipe is not done. It's too hard to use, and key parts of its feature set have yet to be built. It is, though, an extremely interesting middleman service for handling what is becoming a real problem for a lot of people: Personal content management not just for what we read, but for what we create.

See also: Ping.fm, Pixelpipe, and Friendfeed.

Cloud computing

Here's a few links to some of the recent articles about his hotly debated topic.
For many it's a potential hard/software replacement model that could promise free computing power for all, but what really excites me about it all is the idea of a content cloud coupled with open social and data portability.

This would create an environment in which people take their digital identities (in the form of universal profiles) with them wherever they go, access a whatever site, service or application they feel like instantly have their entire social graph at their disposal, as well as all the content and tools they were using in previous environments.

Power to the little guy!

Anyway, have a read and make your own predictions:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/76953,gartner-google-discuss-future-of-cloud-computing.aspx
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_52/b4064048925836.htm
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/07/15FE-cloud-computing-reality_1.html

Skype 4.0

A Redesign at Skype
By BRAD STONE, NY Times

Skype, eBay’s Internet phone division, has always been something of a problem child for the e-commerce giant.

The service is growing like a weed, with 309 million registered users. It earned $126 million in the first quarter, exceeding what eBay and PayPal earned at similar age.

Yet considering eBay paid $2.6 billion for Skype in 2005 and last year took a massive write-down on the acquisition, investors and industry observers still view Skype through the thick, dreary lens of disappointment.

Now eBay hopes to give them a new pair of glasses. Tuesday night the company will make available a test of a new version of the program, called Skype 4.0, which it says is the most dramatic redesign of the calling service in its short five-year history.

Josh Silverman, Skype’s president, says it was time to evolve Skype’s user interface. The service started out by offering free audio calls but has gradually added other kinds of communication, like video calls, file-sharing, and text chats. The main purpose of the upgrade, he said, is to bring all those modes together and make it easier to switch between them in a single conversation.

“If I were to sum it all up, that is what 4.0 is about: the next leap forward in integrated communications,” he said.

The full article can be found at: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/a-redesign-at-skype/index.html?th&emc=th

White lable social network tools

Great overview of the offering here from Jeremiah. Thanks man... if we ever get to met i owe you a beer!

List of “White Label” or “Private Label” (Applications you can Rebrand) Social Networking Platforms

February 12th, 2007 | Category: Industry Index, Social Networking, Web Tools

Note May 28, 2008: If you’re one of the vendors listed on this page, I’m conducing research for Forrester Research, please learn more on this post.

Social Networking goes mainstream
I was recently asked by a buddy to name off some social networking platforms that could be branded or changed as needed (that’s where that term ‘white label’ has come from). It’s somewhat relevant as Om Malik has now asked a rhetorical question if Social Network tools are just a feature of website. Overtime, like blogs, these will ‘normalize’.

What is “White Label” Software?
This is software you can brand and integrate tightly into your existing domain. The user experience should be near seamless, therefore any company can have their own MySpace. Kindly do not submit Social Networking tools that don’t meet this criteria, as the list can extend to hundreds if not thousands of companies.

The List
Here’s a list of Social Networking platforms, or suites that you could take and rebrand, if you know of any others, please leave a comment (many of the following are from those that left comments, like Gideon who left quite a few links). Not sorted in any particular order:

BlogTronix
I met Vassil, the CEO, I think it has a chance of giving Sharepoint a run for it’s money given it’s Intranet type features

Sharepoint
Microsoft’s collaboration suite is getting social networking tools for it’s 2007 version, I’m waiting for Microsoft to call me to do a demo.

Five Across
SF company just acquired by Cisco

Community Server
I was looking at this while at a previous role, this is what the famous Channel 9 was built on, as well as Dell 1to1 and Xbox

PeopleAggregator
I’m having dinner with Marc Canter tonight of Broadband Mechanics, I’ll be video interviewing him to learn about his “white-label MySpace-in-a-Box”

Social Platform
Just saw this one, looks pretty interesting. (Update: Feb 2008, now acquired by ONEsite)

SiteLife from Pluck
Pluck already has some other products this could be interesting.

Affinity Circles
This seems to have quite a few educational clients, interesting.

Kick Apps
White label hosted version.

Web Crossing
Social networking and collaboration suite.

Crowd Factory
“Platform that allows you to create a social network site similar to MySpace”

CollectiveX
Doesn’t appear to be a white label, but it’s certainly a Social Network, pretty interesting.

ElggSpaces
“Elgg Spaces allows you to create social networks for your organisation. You decide if the network is private or public.”

Me.com
“Build your own community with SNAPP! It’s as easy as point and click”

Onesite
“Customized white-label social networking partnership solutions for large media, entertainment, and community brands.”

PHPfox
Looks like it has some of the open source apps I’ve used before glued together for a social network. I wonder if this will be a dedicated feature available to most web hosts.

Select Minds
“SelectMinds pioneered corporate alumni programs over 7 years ago and continues to push the boundaries of technology in this industry to provide corporate social networking solutions that help our clients and their current and former employees build and maintain the professional relationships that drive success.”

Small World Labs
“Small World Labs provides the design, implementation, and hosting services for your online social or professional network.”

Social Network Server
“Our platform creates two versions of your site,
one for the Web, and one for mobile phones.”

Sparta Social Networks
“We are a full-service social network solutions company, specializing exclusively in the social network arena. ”

Phpizabi
“With literally thousands of websites powered by PHPizabi including everything from simple friends sites to the most complex networking super sites out there.”

Leverage Software
“…suite of functionality which includes personal profile pages, people-matching, blogs, chat, polling, rss, discussion groups, file sharing, widgets, targeted advertising, and robust customer and community analytics…”

Going On
“Organizations of all sizes can use GoingOn to build interactive communities around their most important initiatives and benefit from the open and compatible “network of networks” environment.”

Momo
“Got a brand? Build your community today and start generating incremental revenue from user generated content..”

Drupal
“Equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal can support a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites.”

Awareness (formerly iUpload)
“At the core of the Awareness solution is an on-demand social media platform that combines the full range of Web 2.0 technologies – blogs, wikis, discussion groups, social networking, podcasts, RSS, tagging, photos, videos, mapping, etc. – with security, control, and content moderation. Awareness builds these features into complete communities for companies, or customers use the Awareness API and widgets to integrate Web 2.0 technologies into their own web properties.”

HayStack
“Haystack gives businesses the ability to build social networking capabilities into their websites, encouraging customers and sales reps to create more personal connections. Haystack can also be used to help individuals within organizations connect with each other.”

OmniFuse
“We specialize in rapid creation and adoption of online social networks using our FUSION platform. FUSION combines social networking software with consumer generated media technology to provide a marketing and community building tool for brands, organizations, and other verticals.”

Prospero (Acquired by Mzinga, March 2008)
“We enable organizations to easily, quickly, and cost-effectively develop branded, integrated communities and social networks comprised of message boards, blogs, ratings, and chats and to manage them using a single, intuitive platform.”

LiveWorld
“Liveworld builds, operates, and moderates social networks and online communities with a difference that creates real solutions to meet real business goals. We are distinguished by these advantages”

Userplane
“Userplane is the premier provider of communication software for online communities. Five hosted web apps comprise the application suite – each adding core, must-have features to thriving websites. The apps are robust yet lightweight, cross-platform with no user installation, and customizable for a site’s specific needs.”

Ning
“Ning is the fast and free way to create custom Social Websites!”

The Port
“Grow a community and extend your members’ visit to your site. Provide robust social networking tools to stimulate community interaction and foster word-of-mouth.”

Joomla
“Joomla! is used all over the world to power everything from simple, personal homepages to complex corporate web applications.”

eFriends by Altrasoft
“…is an online social networking software that allows you to start your own site just like Friendster and MySpace. The E-Friends software allows members to connect to people in their personal networks and community, creating a new online interactive resource that is based on a trusted network of friends and associates on the internet.”

intronNetworks
Complete graphic and content customization
“Can be attached via web services to any database. User Features include ability to interactively search and filter results of matches out of 1000’s of users in seconds. ” (From comments as I can’t copy and paste any text as the site is in flash)

DZOIC
“start your own social networking portal? If so, then you have just found what you were looking for. Feature Rich User End, Advanced Admin Console, Paid Membership Integration, Flash Instant Messenger and Chat, Fulfeatured Modules”

Boonx
“Use flexible and powerful community software and implement your brilliant idea in real life. Build a community site using Dolphin, and enhance it with Ray and Orca.”

World Web (in German)
I can’t confirm this site meets the criteria, since I don’t speak German

Dave Networks
“provider of an integrated video distribution and social community platform designed to ignite brands.”

Village Engine
“We created a social networking technology as we felt that there were no really good software out there.”

Neighborhood America
“The Trusted Leader in Social Networks for the Enterprise”

Movable Type
Recently announced social features and APIs

Lithium Technologies
Successful Customer Communities

Group Members International
“Outsourced White Label Enterprise Level Hosted and Managed Social Networking Community Platform”

Vibe Capital
“Vibe Capital builds Web 2.0 community software solutions for vertical market sectors”

Social Groupware
“Social GroupWare is an approach to create a Free on-line platform for Social Networking with the most known success story as Business Networking Club of Milan, Italy- http://www.milanin.com”

World Dating Partners
“We build your brand… not ours. Earn the highest income possible with your own branded or white label site. A Free solution to fit your ideas, plans and financial expectations”

Kwiqq
“Kwiqq.com enables online communities for travel, media and football. Our product provides a complete social networking solution ‘out of the box’ and is fully customisable.”

Go Lightly
“GoLightly provides communication and collaboration solutions for community-minded organizations. Our social networking tools give your members the ability to interact with you and each other in powerful new ways.”

Atlassian Confluence
“Confluence is an enterprise wiki that makes it easy for your team to collaborate and share knowledge. Confluence - The Enterprise Wiki. Adding, sharing and finding content has never been easier. These benefits come with all the additional features needed to make it a part of your business:

conVerdge
“ConVerdge is a social media, networking and community building specialist. We help clients around the globe take advantage of the shifting consumer preferences to connect, communicate and share content online. We have created a superior platform that enables us to white-label our turnkey hosted community solution for portals that want to quickly establish themselves with the best of web 2.0 technologies. With Converdge, we empower both large organizations and small businesses to customize, personalize, target, distribute and monetize their brand by delivering a robust, scalable and reliable solution.”

Rsitez
“Group Networks, Social Networks, Photo Sharing, Blogs, Live Chatrooms, Dynamic Searchable Profiles, Videos, Articles, Events, Calendar, Forums, Jobs Database, Private Email, Instant Messenger (IM), user generated content and more.”

Pringo
“Pringo Networks offers a complete social networking and media sharing platform allowing your company to effectively build an integrated online community around your existing user base. Pringo Networks provides the power and flexibility of state-of-the-art social network solution on your site. With features surpassing the leading popular networks, the Pringo technology can offer you and your audience the same functionality as MySpace, YouTube, Tribe.net, Bebo.com and then some!”

FriendSite
Your own Sub-domain. With our social network site, you simply add a sub-domain (an A record) to your website, and this can be whatever your choose… http://members.yourdomain.com, http://community.yourdomain.com, etc.. or even your own dedicated domain name - your choice.

SixApart
“Extends blogging and social media platform to user-generated content in internal and external communities. Movable Type Community Solution (MTCS), a package of social media features built on top of the popular Movable Type 4 platform. The Movable Type platform powers many signature websites and blogs around the world, from the Washington Post to the Huffington Post, from General Motors to Nissan Motors, and from Boeing to BoingBoing.”

Satmetrics (Formerly Informative)
“Marketing 2.0 is about digital democracy and the wisdom of crowds – where prioritized content trumps mass media; and where collaboration and communities of customers drive growth and innovation. Informative provides interactive market solutions that engage customers and identify their top priorities.”

Mixxt
“Easily create a social network that looks, works and feels exactly as you want it to”

Plone
“Plone is a ready-to-run content management system that is built on the powerful and free Zope application server. Plone is easy to set up, extremely flexible, and provides you with a system for managing web content that is ideal for project groups, communities, web sites, extranets and intranets.”

Diso (Wordpress)
“DiSo (dee • zoh) is an umbrella project for a group of open source implementations of these distributed social networking concepts. or as Chris puts it: “to build a social network with its skin inside out”.

KREM social networks (Netherlands)
“Realize the potential of social networks”

Social Engine
“Build your own niched, customized, viral social network. Start simple and buy features a la carte”

introNetworks
“introNetworks, Inc. offers an award-winning platform that facilitates the creation and management of these private business communities with world-class, easy-to-use tools that visually display relevant matches between people, companies, products - virtually anything. The result? You build loyalty, learn about your audience, and drive revenue.”

Vitrue
“Our Advanced Platform enables companies of all sizes, including some of the world’s most visible brands, to leverage social media to enhance their brand value and long-term business success. Whether it’s through the development of promotional web campaigns and communities, or by integrating into the fabric of a company’s business, we use our expertise and advanced technology to help brands connect with consumers on a deep, interactive level. More about our Solutions..”

Wild Apricot
“Build a professional looking website without having to call up expensive nd busy web experts. Wild Apricot’s software provides professionally designed templates and tools to easily adapt the look and feel”

Acquia
“We are a new software company that will provide value-added software products and services for the Drupal social publishing system. With over two million downloads since inception, Drupal is used by web developers worldwide to build compelling websites. Diverse organizations use Drupal as their core social publishing system, including media companies, non-profit organizations, publishers, and many others. Acquia plans to accelerate and extend market adoption of Drupal by advancing the core technology and offering value-added software products and network services that dramatically speed deployment and reduce risk.”

CoreSpeed
“CoreSpeed provides cohesive private-label online marketing, ecommerce, and social media platforms for your enterprise with our flagship Web 2.0 product, CorePlatform”

Flux
“We’ve developed an expansive toolset and powerful platform to give you a huge range of features: content sharing, member profiles, customized page layouts, photo and video uploads, easy technical integration, and so much more.”

Higher Logic
“Higher Logic provides hosted Social Networking software for non-profits and member based organizations. Our products integrate with your membership management system to give your members new and exciting ways to communicate with one another.”

TamTamy
Enterprise Social Network

What are you doing now?

[With thanks to The Washington Post]

To Wit: Twittering

By Rob Pegoraro
Thursday, May 1, 2008; Page D01
Politicians can have their message of the day, but on the Web, anybody can have their message of the hour -- or the minute.

Short updates on social-networking sites have become a new sort of public writing, the equivalent of text-messaging the Web.

As with texting, conciseness matters here; one popular site even limits updates to 140 characters. (See, this paragraph just hit that mark.)

The best-known example of the genre may be Facebook's "status update," in which you can share your latest tidings with friends.

For many Facebook users, it's their favorite part of the site, both reality-show entertainment and creative outlet.

These updates can be mundane, such as recaps of travel (everybody likes to complain about security lines!) and night-life agendas.

They can also be deliberately cryptic, part of the fun of quasi-public speech meant to enlighten close friends and puzzle others.

(What to make of one co-worker's declaration Tuesday that he "doesn't see what the big deal is"?)

Facebook's status updates have plenty of competition at other online social networks, each with its own style and grammar.

MySpace invites you to pick a word to label your mood; the business-networking site LinkedIn lets you describe your current project.

The site to make the most of this concept, however, doesn't offer much but status updates.

Twitter's home page ( http://twitter.com) simply asks people "What are you doing?"

hen this San Francisco start-up challenges them to say their piece in 140 characters or less.

That limit, tighter than even a text message's 160-character cap, forces brevity and encourages frequency.

So do the usual ways to post an update: cellphone texting, IM services, or a box on Twitter's site that counts down as you near that limit.

You can opt to write only for friends, but Twitter co-founder Biz Stone e-mailed that "80-90" percent of users choose publicity.

Follow their example, and others can search for you and click a "follow" button to get your updates, or "tweets."

You can then converse bulletin-board-style, posting new tweets to answer one another. You can also swap private messages.

Your reward for successful solipsism: a public count of how many Twitterers follow your updates.

You can further express yourself by adding a portrait and background image and changing the colors of text on your page.

And you can publish your tweets on other sites -- many Facebook users include Twitter updates on their Facebook profile pages.

Market researchers say relatively few users have taken up this two-year-old service's offer, but their numbers are growing rapidly.

Twitter itself won't reveal user numbers, and conventional Web traffic estimates ignore its phone and IM users.

ut the New York-based research firm Hitwise reported that its "page views" in April were 900 percent higher than they were a year ago.

Twitter's users have interpreted its open-ended invitation as foolishly and as imaginatively as you might imagine.

Some have broadcast utter drivel, such as their latest snacks, and others have dealt with more serious matters.

At least one user has proposed marriage -- and received an affirmative answer back on the site.

Last month, another user used his phone to report his jailing in Egypt, after which friends successfully lobbied for his release.

Some jokers impersonate famous characters. "Darth Vader," for example, has some 7,500 followers reading his riffs on "Star Wars."

In a less mischievous vein, somebody has been posting Metro's service alerts to a Twitter page.

A growing number of businesses and organizations have taken the hint and began setting up their own presences on Twitter.

JetBlue, for example, answers travelers' queries and warns about weather-related delays.

The Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns also post updates on Twitter, though John McCain's has resisted the temptation.

And me? I've begun to use it as a mix of notepad and gossip column, sharing random observations with whoever may read them.

To date, Twitter users have not been troubled by ads or any other evidence of a profit motive.

An about-us page says Twitter "has many appealing opportunities for generating revenue" but wants to build its audience first.

My bet: Expect to see the same Google ads that you spot everywhere else, and soon. 1999's dot-com exuberance vanished long ago.

The real risk, though, is not the failure of this site or others like it. It's that the daily routine of zapping off these short snippets of text will erode your ability to think in complete paragraphs or read anything long enough to require a tap of a page-down key, much less a flip of a page. And as you spend ever-more time recording your exploits -- like a sociologist sentenced to conduct endless field research on himself -- you will abandon all hope of ever living in the moment.

That would be bad.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro atrobp@washpost.com. Read more athttp://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/30/AR2008043003358_4.html?nav=rss_technology

Open Social - The Social Network For Companies Scared Of Facebook

by: Karl Long

And myspace might be saying “Thanks for the add” to google as well.

I had initially thought this story from Tech Crunch was like a formation of a “coalition of the willing” with the other social networks, but I’m begining to think it might have much bigger implications.

OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks:

* Profile Information (user data)
* Friends Information (social graph)
* Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)

Hosts agree to accept the API calls and return appropriate data. Google won’t try to provide universal API coverage for special use cases, instead focusing on the most common uses. Specialized functions/data can be accessed from the hosts directly via their own APIs.

Could this form the foundation for the Internet to finally become the platform? Sure you’ve got a few social networks involved but what if enterprises started using this as the basis for their own social networks? Imagine companies that started to run their businesses on social applications. Sure email is the lingua franca still, but wikis, blogs, and the concept of social networking are changing the way businesses are working.

The only thing that I see missing that would really enable this to happen is some kind of real identity system, because still the advantage that Facebook has at this time is pretty good identity and relationship management. Again the old adage applies, “on the internet nobody knows your a dog”

UPDATE:
It seems that quite a few people think it’s likely that Facebook will likely join OpenSocial as well, it makes sense, but it’s clear that Google had to get everyone else on board first.

Ars Technica has some more on the story as does Read/Write Web who I totally recommend following for more insight on this.

Original Post: http://experiencecurve.com/archives/open-social-the-social-network-for-companies-scared-