Clunky Flow

via Ina

Social network is a terrrible metaphor
If you’ve ever talked to me, I have probably taken you by the pin of your collar and blasted something like this in your direction: ‘Social networks!? Don’t talk to me about social networks! I despise the term. Not only is a terrrible metaphor for reality. Its dangerrous and damaging as well”

We must start using the social cloud
If you didn’t manage to escape at this point, I’d have continued “We need a new metaphor, such as a social cloud, that recognizes the esssential fluidity and dynanism of social relationships. Only then can we hope to build platforms that don’t direct people into autistic-style interactions that plague these so-called social networks”

At which point, I’d generally point up to the sky and get a far away look in my eye. Which was also your cue to slip away unnoticed.

Its not just me…
Well, I think its only fair to warn you that there’s more of the same coming. You’ll no longer be able to escape by simply avoiding me. Other people are starting to say the same thing. Normal people. Respectable people. Using almost exactly the same words. But unaccompanied by the wild-eyed look.

Skip the first 14 minutes and watch to the end.

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The move:
Google have made an API which they call the Social Graph API.

The hook:
The move looks utterly benign as Google announce it as a significant advance toward the goal of helping you ‘liberate’ your personal data. Google is ‘liberating’ your personal data from the ‘protectorship’ of the likes of Facebook and MySpace. Information is meant to be free and these walled gardens have controlled access to your information long enough. Google is ‘liberating’ your data. And this will allow you to move your social graph from one service to another. It will also allow you to pull out the social graphs of others and move them from one service to another.

The sucker punch
This advance is good for users and good for developers, but my God is it good for Google too. I presume that this toolset will be very popular. I presume that this also means that Google is making copies of all this data on their servers. I presume this will places Google at the very centre of all the information about your web-mediated social life. Which is a space that until a minute ago that everyone thought was occupied by Facebook and MySpace etc.

The final word
I presume the Google guys are sitting in their office writing an email something like this:

Dear Facebook, MySpace, OpenSocial partners..whoever.

Ahem. In case you haven’t noticed.
All you bases belong to us.

Larry and Sergey.

The next move:
The final task left for Google now is to build/acquire a platform that will enable anyone and everyone build bespoke social networks for anything and everything. Something like Marc Andreesen’s Ning.

So how did these guys get so badly wrongfooted by the Google’s ninja moves?

Well they weren’t paying attention to what is important. The long game, the strategy. While everyone was shouting about Facebook opening its platform and OpenSocial and all that, Google was planning its killer moves. To explain let me refer you to what may be the best quote that was never heard in 2007. I’ve lifted it from Tom Morris who posted it earlier today.

I haven’t bought into the OpenSocial hype…Not interesting… Facebook vs. OpenSocial, as if that actually mattered in the long run (the social network fight is doomed to one winner - the Web-… )

Google have always understood this. Ning has always understood this. And both have focused on positioning themselves. So that they will be in the best strategic position to reap the reward as this inevitability unfolds.

Hats off.

***As an important piece of plumbing in the social web, I’d be very interested in what the SIOC guys make of all this.

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