Web Strategy Predictions: Facebook, Identity, Social Networks

Categories: Social Networking, Web Industry, Web TheoryPosted on June 23rd, 2007

I’ve been thinking over the last few weeks there are a few thing that are going to be happening in the social networking space.

Here’s a few predictions how the Social Networking sites will evolve:

-Facebook will launch an Identity widget that I can embed on my blog. This allows only those who have registered to Facebook to leave a comment, many high profile blogs will do this, to avoid nasty anonymous comments, thus reducing the incident of Kathy Sierra type events. Dave Winer is right. Update: here’s an example of a website that requires a Facebook login to access. Link from Jay.

-The data collected from these widgets ables Facebook to erode the small marketshare that Attention trackers and MyBlogLog are creating.

-Facebook will have faster adoption that Open ID, as the consumer users will drive it. (Remember the mantra of consider joining before creating communities)

-MySpace will open their platform and enable development with their APIs, all in response to Facebook. Developers will have instances in both networks, and there will be many logins; Myspace, Facebook, and the applications themselves.

-White Label social networks (the master list I started some time ago) will start to offer ability to share data with other networks. Some will never adopt this as their corporate clients want walled gardens around their brand. Additional thoughts by Marc Canter.

-Google Groups and Yahoo groups will launch next generation community sites, these won’t be the generic bulletin boards that we’re accustomed to, but will take shape as widgetized and customized communities, using APIs.

-LinkedIn, Plaxo and other social networks will catch on a bit later, and deploy APIs. While some of these networks appear to be threats at first, the ability to expand into new communities greatly helps them. Last night over dinner in Singapore, I learned there is greater adoption of tools like xing (I think that’s what they said) in Europe and Asia.

-AOL finally catches on an releases APIs for it’s massive online community that’s existed for many years. It takes a long time to educate and convince the internal powers that be to do this, ROI is never fully measured.

-Facebook’s identity system continues to grow, it shares data with those that have used the widget, users, and of course marketers.

I’ve been talking about the web being amorphous and ubiquitous since 2005, I think we’ll start to see elements of this in 2007.

All of the above are just my theories, I’d love to hear what you think.

Update: Interesting, Christopher at Slate suggests that Facebook could become THE platform, while I suggest others will evolve and play in this space, there’s too much at stake really.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, June 23rd, 2007 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Social Networking, Web Industry, Web Theory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Hi Jeremiah, you spoke about Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, and I thought it would be good to draw your attention to a couple of alternative social networks aiming to build networks in very different ways.

An interesting example that takes the strength of your relationships into account when constructing your social network is Visible Path. Essentially, you can only add someone into your network only if there has been an email exchange, and within the network, the relationship is measured by the number and frequency of email exchanges. With an outlook plugin, they track the rise and wan as well.

Another interesting example of a social network is illumio. What it does is that it scans your PC for documents, and based on those documents, decide what you are interested in. They will recommend who you should get in touch with, and when you ask a question into the Illumio, they will in turn send it to the people they think would have the answer. Of couse, you can form groups too

I do not think either works particularly well, because we still have to install some form of outlook/PC plugin for them to be able to accurately “predict” things. But moving forward, I think someone like Google might allow users to “opt-in” to form such a powerful social network. They already have everything they need to know about me to form a very very effective network of trusted links and accurate interests. Scary but exciting. That would be my own prediction.

Also, carrying on our conversation, Xing is still much smaller than LinkedIn, but they grew faster than LinkedIn in their home country of Germany, and matching LinkedIn in terms of growth in Europe over the last couple of years, although LinkedIn still has the headstart. They have an interesting expansion strategy via partnerships n accquisitions in selected markets though. Also, their conversion rate is 17%, which certainly sounds pretty high to me.

I made a mistake - Do not think Xing is bigger in Asia than LinkedIn. They have traction, but still smaller. And check out these international linkedIn(s), all localized:

vnspoke.com, iconnecte.com, wealink.com, MoiKrug.ru

Posted by Ming Yeow on June 23rd, 2007 at 6:21 pm

I agree that a ubiquitous web will start appearing in 2007. This is the year.

I don’t think MySpace will get with the program, I don’t think Rupert Murdoch or his team will be nimble enough to implement. It is just a cash cow to him.

I agree with everything else you state, though I think facebook will not continue to shine, other players will innovate and lead soon enough.

Posted by Kin Lane on June 23rd, 2007 at 10:59 pm

[...] Lately social networks and identity are discussed more intensely in the blogosphere with high profile bloggers like Robert Scoble and Jeremiah Owyang spearheading the discussion. Especially the latter has caught my attention as he is focusing on Facebook as the platform to manage most of people’s social networking and identity needs. He writes: -Facebook will launch an Identity widget that I can embed on my blog. This allows only those who have registered to Facebook to leave a comment, many high profile blogs will do this, to avoid nasty anonymous comments, thus reducing the incident of Kathy Sierra type events. Dave Winer is right. [...]

Posted by Facebook or OpenID? Or Both? at Not So Relevant on June 24th, 2007 at 12:21 am

[...] Er gaan al langer stemmen op dat Facebook langzamerhand de nieuwe Google wordt. Het lijkt erop dat er zich langzamerhand een geheel eigen economie rondom Facebook vormt. Door nu widgets van 3rd party developers toe te staan kan Facebook langzamerhand uitgroeien tot een single point of contact en daarmee tevens concurreren met platforms als Netvibes of iGoogle. Zeker op haar directe concurrente heeft Facebook nu een voorsprong en lijkt het een kwestie van tijd totdat ook diensten als Myspace en Linkedin moeten volgen. [...]

Posted by KnowledgeCafe » Facebook economie? on June 24th, 2007 at 2:47 am

One other thing that we spoke about. I suspect it is not the main social networks like Facebook that will adopt universal ID systems, but rather the long tail of social networks, perhaps best typified by the informal social networks of the many different wikis around. These are the ones without the critical mass of networks like Facebook, and hence will definitely benefit from having a universal ID that can be used across all of them.

Posted by Ming Yeow on June 24th, 2007 at 10:41 am

[...] One thing for sure, the area here in the bay area is perfect, compared the humid sweltering of south east Asia. What’s most intersting is to see that LinkedIn has decided to open up a platform, I just wrote a piece yesterday saying why this is important, and last week too. I guess we were all on the same path. [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Back from Singapore on June 24th, 2007 at 5:33 pm

Thanks Ming Yeow for these interesting thoughts, there’s so many social networks out there, it’s really hard to keep track. That’s why users should be free to navigate from one community to the next, that’s why open identity systems matter.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 24th, 2007 at 5:35 pm

Kin Lane,

I think we’ll start to see it happen this year, but full adoption will take time!

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 24th, 2007 at 5:36 pm

[...] Web Strategy Predictions: Facebook, Identity, Social Networks [...]

Posted by Interesting Links « Organized Mashup on June 24th, 2007 at 5:47 pm

[...] MG Siegler thinks Facebook should buy LinkedIn, which is not a bad idea (Ashkan ponders this as well). And Dave Winer has an interesting suggestion: someone should not only open up their network, but become the operator of a digital identity service — OpenID style — that could be used anywhere. Jeremiah Owyang has some thoughts along those lines as well. Maybe if Facebook tried that, it might get a better reception than the times Microsoft has tried to do something along those lines. facebook, linkedin, platform | Share This | Related links [...]

Posted by Is it too late for LinkedIn to catch Facebook? » mathewingram.com/work on June 24th, 2007 at 7:18 pm

No doubt, the Facebook Platforms been all the rage since its release. And with this platform, Facebook appears to have positioned itself as the social networking successor.

The “digital wallet” thing is definitely a good thing to keep fake ID’s and outlaws from subverting the online media. I’m sure it can gain some steam if its delivered initially from within Facebook, but its long-term success needs to hinge on being interchangeable and mobile to take along as backpack our way through the Web.

Having come from MySpace, I can immediately identify with a site where the user has access to alter the html on their profile pages. MySpace allowed us to have a look at what the Web could be like if enough regular folks had a willingness to learn some basic code.

Facebook seems to have gone in a completely different direction, and looked instead at giving that kind of leeway and control only to developers, and those who are willing to invest their time and smarts to become a symbiont with a chance at cashing in on Facebooks current success.

According to some, its the kind of relationship which could find a few symbionts feeling a little disappointed.

Posted by Joseph on June 25th, 2007 at 8:09 am

…here is the correct “feeling a little disappointed” link.

Posted by Joseph on June 25th, 2007 at 8:16 am

Thanks Joseph

This will make my link blog

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 25th, 2007 at 8:21 am

[...] Jeremiah Owyang on Web Strategy Predictions: Facebook, Identity, Social Networks. Facebook will launch an Identity widget that I can embed on my blog. This allows only those who have registered to Facebook to leave a comment, many high profile blogs will do this, to avoid nasty anonymous comments, thus reducing the incident of Kathy Sierra type events. Dave Winer is right. [...]

Posted by Facebook, OpenID Adoption Rates And the Evolution of Social Networking » The Progress Bar on June 25th, 2007 at 10:49 am

[...] I talked to a few of the developers about the ‘widget’ they’ve deployed into myspace a while back. I encouraged them to get involved with Facebook as quickly as possible, I think they’re already going down that path. Have you read my predictions on the open/close networks? [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Lunch 2.0 at SimplyHired on June 29th, 2007 at 4:17 pm

[...] Met Facebook heb je in één klap een immense user base binnen je bereik om je producten of diensten af te zetten en daarmee is het dus een platform waar je als organisatie eigenlijk niet wilt ontbreken. Er gaan al langer stemmen op dat Facebook langzamerhand de nieuwe Google wordt. Het lijkt erop dat er zich langzamerhand een geheel eigen economie rondom Facebook vormt. Door nu widgets van 3rd party developers toe te staan kan Facebook langzamerhand uitgroeien tot een single point of contact en daarmee tevens concurreren met platforms als Netvibes of iGoogle. Zeker op haar directe concurrente heeft Facebook nu een voorsprong en lijkt het een kwestie van tijd totdat ook diensten als Myspace moeten volgen. LinkedIn zit het in ieder geval wel zitten. [...]

Posted by Leven we in een Facebook economie? · BlueAce on July 2nd, 2007 at 4:50 am

[...] By the way, have you read my predictions on the future of Facebook, LinkedIn, APIs and Identities? A lot of my predictions came true. [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Web Usage: Facebook grows older, watch for the retirement fund API on July 6th, 2007 at 2:03 am

[...] “Since contributors to Wikipedia and YouTube are frequently anonymous, it’s hard for users to be certain of their identity — or their agendas”. True. This is why I believe that an identity system will be key, I predict Facebook will be a big factor in this. [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » The problems with Social Media and the Wisdom of Crowds on July 10th, 2007 at 8:55 am

Identity Management , it’s a public service…

I met Jeremiah Owyang last night and he sent me a link to a post he did a couple weeks ago on the future of Facebook. It’s an excellent post which maps out a future that may very well come……

Posted by flashpoint on July 13th, 2007 at 10:48 am

Great post Jeremiah.
I’m not sure how I missed this, but I only came across it now.
I wrote about OpenID and Facebook a while back as well, and I agree with your thoughts that Facebook will have faster Identity 2.0 adoption than OpenID. OpenID is somehow still too complex for the average webuser.

Although I’d like to see OpenID come up trumps, I think it will be the platform that appeals to the lowest common denominator. Facebook in this case.

Posted by Uno de Waal on July 16th, 2007 at 7:38 am

[...] closed garden with one-way doors. This means that data comes in, but it’s not coming out –yet. I predict that Facebook will continue to have mass user adoption at the consumer level, when they get smart, they’ll use [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » When Search borrows from your “friend list” on July 17th, 2007 at 7:48 am

[...] the back of this Jeremiah Owyang has an interesting post in which he predicts a few things that are going to be happening in the social networking space [...]

Posted by where next for Social Networking? at pixelblog on July 17th, 2007 at 9:12 am

[...] Jeremiah Owang’s predictions about Facebook. And his list of Behavioral and Social recommendation services. [...]

Posted by Marc’s Voice » Blog Archive » Greetings from Trieste, Italy - blog links #2 on July 19th, 2007 at 3:55 am

[...]The momentum of OpenID and fact that Facebook is working with Open Source companies like Six Apart certainly makes it plausible we could see Facebook support OpenID in the future. Ideally we would like to see all platforms support OpenID authentication at some point. [...]

Posted by Kevin Fox on July 24th, 2007 at 3:27 pm

[...] help, others have suggested identiyy widgets, or existing networks like LinkedIn, well, I suggested Facebook (I’m not the only [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Yet another reason why we need a single, trusted, and protected identity system on July 28th, 2007 at 8:38 am

[...] has been a very interesting subject for me for a while, and comments on this post lead me to Uno’s blog where he has two posts, “Facebook is now the new [...]

Posted by (de)railed » Blog Archive » Social Networks vs Identity Providers on August 7th, 2007 at 12:53 pm

[...] http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/06/23/web-strategy-predictions-facebook-identity-social-netw... [...]

Posted by (de)railed » Blog Archive » A Facebook OpenID Provider on August 7th, 2007 at 11:50 pm

[...] the back of this, Jeremiah Owyang has an interesting post in which he predicts what he believes is going to be happening in the social networking space [...]

Posted by where next for Social Networking? « ditigal ramblings on August 15th, 2007 at 5:25 am

[...] Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Web Strategy Predictions: Facebook, Identity, Social Networks [...]

Posted by Ecommerce Lounge - Todays top blog posts on Internet Marketing - Powered by SocialRank on August 16th, 2007 at 12:35 am

[...] For more on the subject, visit: Jeremiah Owyang [...]

Posted by FaceBook is the Online Hub for Connected Professionals | PR2.0 on March 20th, 2009 at 8:47 pm