Open Facebook

Wired makes a call for open standards in social networking sites. I’ve heard this complaint in several places, and think it’s a valid one. It’s annoying that our social netorking “identities” are walled off. Take me for example… I have accounts with LinkedIn, Facebook, Internet Time, Eduspaces, MySpace, Friendster, and countless other social networking startups whose tires I kicked for a few days. Each time I create one of these accounts, I have to recreate my network. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could see all of my facebook contacts when logged in to linkedin?

Here’s a couple money quotes:

“They’re all good, but they’d be better if they worked together. The iPhone would be better if it could also be used on Verizon’s and Sprint’s networks, and Facebook would be better if you could link to friends’ pages on MySpace and Bebo. Social networking should be based on open standards, just like e-mail. “

“We would like to place an open call to the web-programming community to solve this problem. We need a new framework based on open standards. Think of it as a structure that links individual sites and makes explicit social relationships, a way of defining micro social networks within the larger network of the web. “

There are people who see Facebook as more of a ”gated community” (as some would call it) than a closed network. However, you could still have an exclusive “members-only” network, while still having the ability to share your information with outsiders.

So, we’ll just have to keep waiting until open standards are developed for these sites. Until then, we could all replace Facebook using open social tools. It’s a temporary fix, at least.

Why I Left Eduspaces

I recently moved my blog from Eduspaces to WordPress. Eduspaces is built on the Elgg platform, which enables you to create your own social network. The Eduspaces network is devoted to educators, which is a great idea… but it’s not quite there.

Here’s a few things I’d like to see Elgg improve upon:

• There’s no way to separate quality content from the rest. As I said in a comment on the Internet Time forums, Eduspaces needs a way to recommend content. When you log in, you’re normally greeted with a mountain of blog posts. A recent article on Wired talks about how Daily Kos gets around this issue. Users are able to vote, promote, and rank content created by the community.
• I couldn’t see what my “friends” were doing. When you log in to Facebook, you can see that Friend A added Friend B to their contacts list. Friend C joined Group A. Friend D wrote a new blog post…. and so on. Elgg does allow you to view your “Friends’ Blog”, which compiles all of your friends’ posts into one list. That’s a good start…
• After trying WordPress, adding the WordPress app to Facebook, and joining a few e-learning Facebook groups, I really don’t have much of a need for Eduspaces. Most Eduspaces folks are on Facebook, and they’re much more active there (most likely for some of the reasons I’ve listed above).

I hope this doesn’t sound too critical of Elgg. I think it’s a great idea. I like that it’s open source.  I just think it needs some work.