Many social networks, one central profile?

Posted on September 21, 2008
Filed Under Social Networking / Media |

Are you on multiple social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut and more? Are you bothered about having a profile on each of these to be individually created and updated? I took feedback from some thought leaders and this is what they see happening - or at least that’s their wish:

Deane Barker, Content Management Practice Director at Blend Interactive:
“The biggest thing I want to see is the ability to have a centrally-located profile, and have all the social networking apps I’m involved with pull that data to populate my profile on that particular app.

There should be an XML spec or something that all networks share that describes a person. I can either publish this from my own site, or I can pick my favorite social networking app (LinkedIn?) that I want to be “authoritative” for me. Then I point all others to that, and they populate my profile with that information and keep it updated by pinging the profile every once in a while (or, when I update by authoritative profile, it can ping the other services to come get updates).

Since every app stores different info, there would have to be some mechanism to allow for custom information for that specific app, but the central information (name, location, email, picture, etc.) is common to them all.

I change things in one place, they change everywhere. This would encourage me subscribe to many more social network apps than I do now.”

Johan Vermij, Networked Virtual Environments & Innovative Projects at Sogeti Nederland BV
“The web needs some linking pins that can put pieces together; it’s getting too diffuse now. I myself have to juggle over 30 accounts for social websites and virtual worlds, hard to keep track off. We need better identity management.”

Will Kerslake, Creative Director at Radar Group
“The idea of a single open-profile identity across multiple sites, is an obvious next step, but it comes with a massive security risk. With a single login a malicious user would only need to discover one username/password combination to gain access to a wealth of knowledge about an individual. Doing login consolidation as a software side or browser plug-in seems like a safer alternative then a completely online service.”