[OpenID] Musing on FaceBook, OpenID and the next mountain to climb

Sat Aug 2 06:31:35 UTC 2008

Couldn't agree more Eran.....

I feel like the community is a little like a rabbit staring into the 
proverbial headlights over this. I see no reason to either look up to 
Facebook or attempt any copy of Facebook closed technologies.

Social networks come and go (sixdegrees=hype1:1997, 
friendster=hype2:2002). One of the reason that Facebook is experiencing 
limited competition is that the real "social network cashcow" is in 
mobile networks. Let me throw this at you:

Facebook users click on an advertisement 0.04% of the time - yes, just 
400 clicks in every 1 million views one of the lowest returns on the web 
today.
Source: 
http://valleywag.com/tech/advertising/facebook-consistently-the-worst-performing-site-242234.php

eMarketer forecasts that over 800 million people worldwide will be 
participating in a social network via their mobile phones by 2012, up 
from 82 million in 2007.
Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Report.aspx?code=emarketer_2000489

Now if anybody wants to focus on mobile OpenID, OAuth integration and 
making it very simple to overlay open formats (such as a social 
networking syndication format) by making our extensions documented to 
look more like a developers API I am listening;)

Tom

Eran Hammer-Lahav wrote:
>
> A few facts:
>
> Facebook Connect could have been built on top of OAuth.
>
> Facebook did not participate in the Open Web Foundation launch – Dave 
> Morin was involved as an individual.
>
> Facebook has been talking about their desire to open and learn more 
> about open specs for a year now, with nothing to show for it.
>
> Facebook has been invited and engaged in conversations with the 
> community with nothing but a waste of time to show for it.
>
> ---
>
> The fact that on the same day they announce support for the OWF, they 
> also announce a product that is ignoring all the work done by this 
> very same community they claim to be supportive off, is to me, a 
> mockery. I would be happy to be proven wrong but for a year now seen 
> nothing to make me believe it.
>
> EHL
>
> *From:* general-bounces at openid.net [mailto:general-bounces at openid.net] 
> *On Behalf Of *Dick Hardt
> *Sent:* Friday, August 01, 2008 3:40 PM
> *To:* Paul Trevithick
> *Cc:* david at sixapart.com; OpenID
> *Subject:* Re: [OpenID] Musing on FaceBook, OpenID and the next 
> mountain to climb
>
> Hi Paul
>
> While Facebook could take the silo approach, they are interested in 
> seeing how open standards could be used. They participated in the Open 
> Web Foundation launch and when I was at their office earlier this 
> week, they expressed serious interest in OpenID. See my blog post 
> (which had to be run by them as it was an NDA meeting).
>
> http://identity20.com/?p=155
>
> Given the state of OpenID tech right now, I do not think it could be 
> used to solve what they wanted to solve in a way that would deliver 
> the clean user experience they desired -- but I would be happily 
> proved wrong! ( I do think they could have used OAuth though)
>
> As I mention in my post, this is an opportunity for the community to 
> work with Facebook.
>
> Myself, I think the technology needs to be enhanced and evolved so 
> that it has features that Facebook Connect does not have in addition 
> to the existing features.
>
> If the community just sits back and says that all the bits are there 
> -- just use them -- then this community is no different from other SSO 
> communities that have told the creators of OpenID that they were 
> reinventing the wheel.
>
> -- Dick
>
> On 1-Aug-08, at 2:09 PM, Paul Trevithick wrote:
>
>
>
> The problem is that this isn’t a technical issue. FB currently has no 
> business incentive to use open technologies that, among many other 
> things, would allow users to be able to retrieve and store their own 
> profile data and friends lists (as currently violates the FB TOS). 
> They are still enjoying the virtuous cycle of the closed mega silos: 
> more users begets more users. OTOH FB will open up if and when there’s 
> a reason to do so. But for now, and for a good while, I’d say FB isn’t 
> a good prospect for open, user-centric technologies.
>
> Paul
>
> On 8/1/08 3:28 PM, "Allen Tom" <atom at yahoo-inc.com> wrote:
>
>
> David Recordon wrote:
> > Is there really anything that Facebook did that couldn't be
> > accomplished with OpenID Authentication 2.0 and OpenID Attribute
> > Exchange?
> Facebook Connect has a nice set of libraries/apis that RPs can just drop
> in relatively easily on their site. The JS libraries implement much of
> the sign in flow (displaying inline sign-in forms as well as a
> permissions screen) which means that the FB Connect user experience is
> consistent across all RPs.
>
> They also seem to have implemented Single Sign Out, because signing out
> of FB seems to also sign you out of the RP.
>
> Additionally, FB Connect also authorizes the RP to write to the user's
> FB News Feed, so there's an authorization component as well. The
> authorization seems to expire when the browser session is closed, so
> it's not quite like OAuth.
>
> And finally, FB Connect requires that the RP pre-register with FB to get
> an api key which presumably allows FB to authenticate the RP, and also
> gives FB the ability block the RP if necessary.
>
> Unlike the OpenID/OAuth/AX services currently in the wild, the FB
> Connect stack is highly integrated, with built in privacy controls and a
> standard UI. But as you correctly stated, I believe most, if not all, of
> the stack could have been built upon open standards.
>
> Allen
>
>
>
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-- 
Tom Calthrop
Founding director, Barnraiser.

Dedicated to giving people the tools they need to share 
knowledge and advance society through social software.

Web site: http://www.barnraiser.org/
OpenID: http://tom.calthrop.info/