Social networks provide powerful mechanisms for connecting people and information, but their benefits are limited to those who sign up with one service or another. For example, a Facebook user can't use her content or friends on LinkedIn or any other network.
That may change soon with top social networks Facebook and MySpace -- as well as Google -- all promising to enable data portability. Google announced Monday a preview release of Friend Connect, a technology that allows regular Web sites to join the social-networking trend.
Sites that add a code snippet become Friend Connect-enabled, giving them the ability to add user registration, invitations, a member's gallery, message posting and reviews, as well as third-party applications built with Google's OpenSocial technology, the company said.
Return of the Long Tail
"Google Friend Connect is about helping the 'long tail' of sites become more social," said David Glazer, a director of engineering at Google. "Many sites aren't explicitly social and don't necessarily want to be social networks, but they still benefit from letting their visitors interact with each other."
Google's announcement comes immediately following news that Facebook will launch a portability technology called Facebook Connect. An extension of Facebook's third-party development platform, Facebook Connect will "allow users to connect their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site," according to a blog posting by Dave Morin, Facebook senior platform manager.
On Thursday, MySpace announced a "Data Availability" initiative to allow partners to access MySpace data and combine it with their own user data in new ways. The program launched with just four partners -- eBay, Yahoo, Twitter and MySpace's own Photobucket.
The Simplicity of Google
Despite all the talk of open platforms and portability, it's clear the companies are competing hard for what could become a massive part of the overall Web. "Social networking right now is...

More...