Recieved the following e-mail from Charlene Li at Forrester regarding my comments on FOAF adoption:
"Agreed that because [profiles] are gold, socnet sites are unlikely to really unfetter them. Take a close look at what exactly is included in the FOAF code LiveJournal and Tribe are putting out. It may be really basic profile information with the option of adding the relationships. But that's not really what's important -- it's the richness of everything that comes back to the profile that makes the profile so rich.
So how's this for an alternative logic line:
My Space starts seeing members hacking in their playlists from iTunes, Yahoo Music, MSN Music, and AOL Music. Those "communication" social networks will potentially threaten MySpace -- what if people start sharing and social networking within their respective portal networks, via address books and buddy lists? My Space will then have an incentive to connect with other interest-based social networks, even competitors, to build up a network that can compete against the portals.I believe the profiles' value are relative to their exclusivity -- if members start defecting or even worse, people start using the portals' social networks and entertainment content without ever even considering My Space, then My Space will have to leverage its most valuable assets -- its profiles -- as distribution currency."
The features (and sometimes, lack thereof) of social networking platforms' FOAF implementations may provide strong hints about the extent to which they are willing to share profile data. To Charlene's comment, I might add that hacking isn't the only factor that could change today's dynamic. FOAF import features, implemented by sites with powerful abilities to attract uses (say, relative newcomers such as Yahoo! 360 or Microsoft's Wallop) might well force established players to protect the exclusivity of their profile data, even at the expense of previously desirable features.
Charlene has done a lot of thoughtful analysis of emerging social media trends, and I have referenced her a number of times in the past. She posts to a blog semi-regularly which is well worth a read.
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