Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it will collaborate with a group of social networking sites to allow contacts stored in
Windows Live to be easily ported between Windows Live and social networking sites. Specifically, the Windows Live Dev blog announced that Microsoft has released the Windows Live Contacts API, meaning any social networking site developer can use the API to create data portability with Windows Live. Microsoft is first working on data portability with Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, LinkedIn and Tagged, though the Windows Live Dev blog didn't mention when that capability with these sites will be up and running.
Microsoft has finally discovered that the Internet and sharing go hand in hand. Service providers that have come from the collaborative no-boundaries world of the Internet, like Google and Yahoo, have long since known that the easier you make it for people to use contact lists to find friends on social networks, the more chance everyone has for success.
But this is a more-or-less "so what?" announcement from Microsoft, given the other social networking news on Tuesday. Yahoo said it has joined the Google-driven OpenSocial group and despite the dance its board is doing with Microsoft's acquisition bid, Yahoo is taking OpenSocial one step further. Along with MySpace and Google, Yahoo is to be a founding member of the not-for-profit consortium OpenSocial Foundation. OpenSocial backed by Google and a few launch partners is a set of open social-networking APIs. It was seen as a countermove to Facebook's popularity with developers.
Microsoft is not part of OpenSocial. Instead it is backing data portability organization DataPortability.org
A fork in the standards between major, rival players? This is such an old, old game. Microsoft has a long way to go to understand the culture of cloud computing and given the players banked up on the other side - Google and Yahoo - it is not the powerhouse.
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The days of walled gardens aren't over, but they are limited
I think the key is that as the shakeout in social network sites continues, the real valuation can be estimated, but only based on a previous real valuation. If we look at the anticipated growth with the expected mergers and acquisitions, it's possible we may avoid the kind of pain we saw with the bubble bursting in the late 1990s.
I see a tendency toward focusing on specific social networking sites, but in the future I think many of us will simply be using what was "learned" in these sites to just be more social -- out in the open, on an Internet without walls. The people we relate to, the relationships we have with them, and the use of available communication tools are the keys to success in this space, not “the site.”
What do you think?
http://carterfsmith.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-long-will-social-networks-be-around.html
Is it MS vs. the world?
Couldn't agree more... I touched on this in my Microsoft Subnet posting about this (Link). Anyhow... we will see what the developments are and if Microsoft comes to their senses. Then again... MS did manage to round a number of major players... so maybe its Google, MySpace, and Yahoo that need to wake up. :>)
- T
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