Meta-Networks at the Gates

Alwayson-network.com (rebirth forthcoming) is a strong example of the type of competition between social networks I predicted just the other day.  Open-access technologies such as FOAF deeply lower barriers to entry by creating opportunities for new platforms to 'import' existing profiles and networks of friends.  AlwaysOn, currently a professional blog/profile network in the LiveJournal milieu, may now aspire to become a central access point to all your semantic web properties.  Now, this particular site seems to promise pro-rated ad-sharing amongst its content providers, but who is to say that subsequent meta-networks will be so generous?

To me, there seem to be two possible medium-term equillibria that could emerge.  Perhaps platforms such as LiveJournal and Tribe learn the lesson that MySpace and TheFaceBook seem to have grasped the easy way, which is that profile data yields the most competitive advantage when kept proprietary.  On the other hand, maybe overwhelming user response to AlwaysOn will usher in a new era of open profile-sharing, where SN platforms differentiate themselves as "browsers" by feature-set and security.

The latter seems more likely in the long-run because it seems optimal from an overall perspective, although I suspect smart SN platforms will guard their personally-optimal information monopolies just as long as they are able to do so.  Profile data and control of the interface seem far more valuable at this stage than incremental ad revenue.  So I suspect AlwaysOn will recieve less-than-cooperative reactions from many, if not all major SN players, especially MySpace but possibly even including some platforms that have experimented with FOAF.

Comments

[Doug Sherrets]

Jon,

What about the possibility that the social networks disallow alwayson's use of their profile content? It's unclear exactly how much that site will attempt integration, but if they are importing profiles of friends of the alwayson user, then that could be considered violating the user agreement of those social networks. I have to think they have thought through the legal side of this. Thoughts?

Doug

[Doug Sherrets]

So you see the challenges of integration of social networks to be as managable as the issues of integrating the IM networks? It seems it would be a bit more complex given different networks organize their profiles differently. Of course, a social network runs deeper than a simple message box to send and receive text. We don't know yet how integrated always-on will be, but blog posts seem to have high hopes that it will be seamless.