One Site to Rule Them All

Social Networking February 05, 2008

With the rise of Google's OpenSocial initiative, it's becoming increasingly more likely that soon in the future we will see social networking sites which follow the same programming foundation.

To those who aren't familiar with the concept, the idea is that if all the social networking sites out there use the same platform, it's easy for developers to create applications for a broader audience than for one particular site.

It would be great if social Internet users could maintain one giant profile page of all their social information (contact info, personal info, professional info, pictures, etc.) that the various websites can then just pick and choose from.

For example, I'm on Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and a slew of other various networking sites. Several use the same information such as my email and website address as well as my picture. Had we developed one central site that all these read from, I could swap my base picture once and the change would radiate throughout dozens of sites I use.

If only all these text input boxes would allow me to insert a URL to a webpage I could make that would display appropriate information read from a database. Then I could maintain my own one profile page that would automatically update all the others.

We're essentially creating virtual identities in the various fields we've filled out on the networking sites we've joined. Yes, most fields are the same, but perhaps we can get a little more creative, writing out our personalities virtually and in such detail that in a sense, our social-networked identity becomes an extension of ourselves, the other half of our daily lives, the part that can reach all the people we don't interact with in person regularly.

The idea can be, of course, scary. Who wants all their personal information available all over the Web? The key is in the privacy controls and settings. I'm fine with writing whatever about myself, so long as the information is used appropriately and is safe from anything harmful.

Nevertheless, I look forward to the coming years on the Internet - I expect we shall see a growing and deeper online social presence, and I'm eager to see where we take it.

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