Building Portable Social Networks

Loose notes from SXSW 2008 session Building Portable Social Networks with:

Jeremy Keith Clearleft Ltd
Chris Messina CEO, Citizen Agency
Leslie Chicoine Experience Designer, Get Satisfaction
Joseph Smarr Chief Platform Architect, Plaxo Inc
David Recordon Open Platforms Tech Lead, Six Apart Ltd

This topic has been fresh on our minds at the Berkeley J-School in our work providing guidance to news publications who are trying to focus more on community, and wondering whether to just tap into Facebook, use Ning, or create their own. The public is rapidly approaching SN overload. Are people really willing to create yet another SN profile? Will they able to re-engage their existing networks of friends? What about all of the data they’ve already stored in their existing SNs? Will BuddyPress help? OpenSocial? SocialThing? What are the technical and privacy issues we’re facing here? Is this problem solvable, or are we erecting a tower of babel?

Continue reading “Building Portable Social Networks”