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

Thu Sep 4 22:37:43 UTC 2008

tom wrote:
> 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;)
>   

Open Social and Portable Contacts are attempting this (with 
synchronization on people list formats).

> 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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