Social Network Standards

The web community is hot on the trail for social network standards. On the surface this sounds like a great idea. Provides web developers and thus companies to focus on the content and not so much on the technology (software) to provide a platform for their tools and thus applications. The standards dubbed OpenSocial will let a software developer write one program that can then be used on any network ranging Facebook to MySpace or even Google. There are many services out there already with the best known being Plaxo and Linkedln. Very nice graphical user interface (GUI) for a very easy user experience and thus productivity with their offerings is very high.

Today we are watching and listening to Google and Microsoft face off to take each other on in the market for the allmighty advertising dollar. So, how do you attract the ad dollars you ask? Simple, it's about traffic. He/She who owns the traffic commands the ad dollars. Today it's the PC and tomorrow it will be bluetooth devices to mobile telehphony. For that matter, where is CISCO on this topic? Hmmmm.

We digress. Fundamentally we support standards. Most of the benefits far out weigh the risk. Did I say risk? Social network standards could lead to a higher risk of personal information being leaked out on the web. We have already seen what can happen with institutions that are hacked or stolen from internally by disgruntled employees who can walk right out of a building with 1000's of records if the controls are not there. Even if they are we have seen theft occur so nothing is without flaw.

The standards must be accomponied by a serious limit on the actual data collection process especially for pre teens and the under 18 group as well. This group is by far the most vulnerable and frequently attacked for innocent looking requests for information. The more we do now the better we can defend and prevent serious comprimising of the network itself.