Facebook + OpenID = Huge

As reported on ReadWriteWeb, Facebook is allowing users to log in using OpenID. Some folks get how big this step is, but for the folks who don’t, you should read this post by Chris Messina. Essentially, as my co-worker Alisa Hansen is constantly preaching about, it’s about data portability.

I won’t regurgitate the RRW or Messina posts, but the short version is that while the web was designed to be social, it was built to share documents. Sites (i.e., social networks) have devised their own ways of creating, storing, and managing identities, assets, and interactions - data. A popular idea is that the time has come to standardize and commoditize these components, including how they interact. While some think this could hurt innovation, others see it differently.

There have been arguments about whether or not you own the data in these social networks (you do), but that’s not the critical point. Not only does the data belong to you, but so too should the ability to freely access, distribute, share, move, send or otherwise manipulate the data as you see fit. That’s not easily possible right now because each site has devised its own way of doing things. Have you ever tried to move your pictures from Flickr to Facebook or vice versa? It’s a huge hassle, but it doesn’t have to be if standards existed to support seamless intra-service interaction.

And it’s not just about the data itself. Acting on your data by viewing a pic, sending an IM, watching a video, generates more data; not only about your data, but direct and tangential data belonging to other people, brands, etc., all of it trackable and measurable. Shouldn’t your actions belong to you too? Shouldn’t you be able to determine who can see what you’re doing, what is being done with it, how it is stored - and if it’s being used as the basis for advertising - how much it is worth?

The reality is that it’s a nascent industry, and everyone is making it up as they go. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a standard for representing a person and their data, in whatever form it exists?

Look, social networks are fun: part interaction, part news, part entertainment, and when someone figures out how to properly monetize the huge amounts of data being generated, there is an equally huge revenue stream; it’ll happen, it’s just a matter of time. Until, however, the users of these sites understand that they get to make the rules about their data - all of it - the status quo will never change. Standards-based open initiatives such as the Data Portability Project and OpenID are critical to freeing your data, and why Facebook, the largest and one of the most closed social networks, allowing OpenID as a login method is HUGE.