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I'm trying without luck to work up the same indignation that's accompanied Facebook's decision to block Google's Friend Connect earlier in the week.

It's become quite the big deal in the blogosphere. Mike Arrington heaped scorn on Facebook's decision while Marc Canter was equally passionate about users getting control over their personal data. (Open is the new black.)

Facebook's defense? Google Friend Connect "redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users' knowledge, which doesn't respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect." (CNET News.com's Dan Farber … Read more

Mobile app maker Frengo is now making apps for popular social networks (Facebook, Hi5, etc.) that allow connections between networks. The Flirtable app, for example, allows users on one social network to flirt with users on another. The Lolz app, likewise, lets users share LOLcat images (sadly, not very funny ones) across networks.

Frengo is using OpenSocial as a standard for building the apps, but OpenSocial doesn't address friend portability or cross-network messaging. Frengo is building that capability into its widgets so that a user on a smaller network who adds one of its apps will join the ad-hoc … Read more

Facebook has about 67 million members. With the new "People You May Know" feature, the number of connections per member will skyrocket, extending the reach and stickiness of Facebook's social graph.

People You May Know finds people within six degrees or so of separation and suggests them as potential friends. It appears that the threshold is set at four, meaning you are connected to four of the same people as the suggested "friend." FriendFeed has taken a somewhat similar approach for recommending new people to "follow."

This type of recommendation engine, which taps … Read more

It's easy to get caught up in the mania but as a new O'Reilly report reminds readers, only a handful of Facebook applications ever become smash hits.

Anyone who has encountered the new oddball Facebook app du jour can attest that the novelty gets old rather fast. That's because many of the ideas are insipid time sucks. At that point, you're more likely to tune out (if you haven't already hit the delete button.) Indeed, O'Reilly notes the "tendency for individual applications to grow very quickly within the first few weeks, and then … Read more

I had a chance to sit down with David Glazer, a director of engineering at Google, and talk with him about OpenSocial and related projects. From this man on the inside of the project, I wanted to get a picture of what OpenSocial will mean to Web users, and find out when.

OpenSocial is an application platform that big Web sites and social networks can choose to support. If a developer writes a product for OpenSocial, then users on any network that supports OpenSocial will be able to run it on their profile … Read more

The first wave of applications built on Google's OpenSocial APIs is set for liftoff in the next few weeks as MySpace, Orkut, and Hi5 make the final push to release their software.

I spoke with David Glazer, director of engineering at Google, at the Graphing Social Patterns conference, who told me that it's "pizza time" for the developers, meaning they are putting in long hours to deliver the apps sooner than later.

The OpenSocial APIs allow developers to create apps that access a social network's friends and update feeds without modification for compliant platforms. The … Read more

Ben Ling, director of product marketing for the Facebook platform, gave a brief peek of the upcoming profile page update and outlined Facebook's vision at Graphing Social Patterns conference. The new profile page will combine the Wall and Minifeed, and additional tabs have been added to showcase users' favorite apps.

Ling said that Facebook has 200,000 developers and 16,000 applications so far. Of the 66 million current Facebook users, 98 percent have used at least one third-party application, and a significant number use six or seven applications, he said.

Ling described Facebook's vision as making its … Read more

The social Web is spawning more than millions of widgets, applications, and people connections. It is also has its own themed conference. Graphing Social Patterns got under way today in San Diego with a keynote by Charlene Li of Forrester Research on the future of social networks.

In the future social networks will be like air, Lee said. "No matter what you do, your social networks will be there. The social graph and your identity will be at your fingertips."

She predicted that by 2013 social networks will be open and ubiquitous. Reaching that plateau won't be … Read more

MIAMI--When the Future of Web Apps conference wound down Friday night, a few things were clear, not the least of which is the fact that open standards are a big deal.

Google engineer Kevin Marks gave a talk at FOWA about application program interfaces (APIs) and Google's role in the developer community. Marks, a veteran of blog search start-up Technorati, now works on the search giant's OpenSocial initiative, which is working toward a universal standard for social-networking standards and is slated to launch on MySpace.com and Hi5 as well as Google's own Orkut soon. He also … Read more