eComm 09

What is the “Social Web” and Why Should I Care?Daniel AppelquistVodafone Group R&D

29 October 2009

eComm 093 What is the “Social Web?” April 10, 2023

One Channel

eComm 094

> Centralized: Compuserve, AOL, Prodigy were dominating the market of online services

> Closed: They were competing, not enabling collaboration and interoperability

Remember the Internet in 1991 ?

Universal: available to anyone, independent of corporations, government, and cultures

Open: Anyone can create a web site, the technology is standardized, no license needed

the “ealy days” of the Internet were dominated by “walled gardens”...

...then, in 1993, Mosaic popularized the “world wide web”

eComm 095

> Centralized: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace dominating the SNS space

> Closed: They are competing, not enabling collaboration and interoperability

Social Networking in 2009 does not look better !

Universal: one social web, spanning across multiple networks, without constraints from either corporations, government or cultures

Open: Anyone can create a ‘social network’ and join the social web

The social networking space is dominated by “walled gardens”...

... is there a future for something more universal and open ?

eComm 096

Users of these services have real concerns

Trust Freedom

FragmentationAvailability

Are privacy settings respected ?

Will my data be deleted when I ask ?

Is my data used for other means ?

Will it always work when I need it ?

Could my account be suspended ?

What happens if the company goes

bankrupt or is acquired ?

Where can my audience find everything about

me ?

Why can’t I consume all my friends data from a

single application ?

Can I share pictures with a friend who is not on the

network ?

Can I switch to another network and keep my data ?

Can I make my design choices ?

eComm 097

Reflected in some recent events

“Facebook: All Your Stuff is Ours, Even if You Quit”

Mashable, February 2009

“Denial-of-Service Attack Knocks Twitter Offline”

Wired, August 2009

“FriendFeed Users Shocked by Facebook Acquisition”

Mashable, August 2009

“U.S. Government Asks Twitter to Stay Up for #IranElection”

Mashable, June 2009

“Tr.im Shuts Down – What happens to your links now?”

The Inquisitr, August 2009

eComm 098 What is the “Social Web?” April 10, 2023

Quick check…

71% of social network users are active in more than one social network

How many social networks do you belong to?

eComm 099 What is the “Social Web?” April 10, 2023

eComm 0910 What is the “Social Web?” April 10, 2023

eComm 0911 What is the “Social Web?” April 10, 2023

“Pre-Web” Thinking?

eComm 0912 What is the “Social Web?” April 10, 2023

Scenarios

> Already happening

> Great diversity

> Customer confusion

> Increasing friction to rolling out new services

> User fatigue

> Security issues leading to trust gap

> Users move seamlessly between social applications

> Decreased friction to rolling out new services

> Decentralized approach means you can take your data and social graph wherever you want

> Happy users

> Social applications interoperate using well-known, agreed, open protocols

Fragmentation Social Web

> Big players increasingly gobble up smaller

> Increased power of social silo applications

> Decreased user choice

> “Walled gardens”

> No impetus to innovate

> Social silos “own” all customer data and their social graph

Consolidation

eComm 0913

What protocols are required?

Unique identifiers

Service discovery

Security

Data model

Transport

Application Programming Interface

(1) Based on the ‘proper’ Open Stack version by John Ernst (http://netmesh.info/jernst/digital_identity/lets-draw-the-open-stack-as-a-proper-stack)

eComm 0914

The so-called “Open Stack” is emerging

Unique identifier: URLs, email, JID

Service discovery: Yadis, XRDS, XRDS-Simple, XEP-0030

Authentication: PKI, OpenID, FOAF-SSL Access Control: OAuth

Profiles: RDF, OpenSocial Activities: Activitystrea.msContacts: Portable Contacts,

FOAF

Transport: HTTP, XMPP

3rd party applications API: OpenSocial Service to service API: Atom, RSS

eComm 0915 What is the “Social Web?” April 10, 2023

Who are the Companies Pushing the Social Web?

Big Corporates:

>Google

>Yahoo!

>Facebook

>Myspace

>Plaxo

>Vodafone

Grass Roots:

>Identi.ca

>XMPP – XSF

>FOAF

>Open source efforts

>OSLO Alliance

eComm 0916 What is the “Social Web?” April 10, 2023

Industry and individual Efforts

>Open Social

>Open Web Foundation

>OpenID and Oauth

>Portable Contacts

>Open Micro-blogging Community (status.net)

eComm 0917 What is the “Social Web?” April 10, 2023

Why is this relevant to us here?

> People are increasingly turning to social networks as a communication medium

– Trust

– Richness

– Ease

– Fun

> Social networks are already disrupting email

– How long until they disrupt voice communication?

> Witness: Teens with Blackberries

> If communication is becoming social and social is becoming open, where does that leave us?

– Selling Facebook phones to Foursquare kids?

eComm 0918 What is the “Social Web?” April 10, 2023

We need to support and nurture this emerging Social Web trend

eComm 0919 What is the “Social Web?” April 10, 2023

W3C Social Web Incubator Group

http://bit.ly/socialwebxg

20 April 10, 2023What is the “Social Web?”

Thank you

Daniel AppelquistVodafone Group R&D

@torgo