With the emergence of cross-social-network developer platforms (first Google’s OpenSocial and then Bebo’s Facebook clone) comes the possibility for applications to connect people across social networks, thereby blurring the lines that designate where one social graph ends and another begins.
Out of the handful of applications on Bebo’s private (and soon-public) platform, one called Bunchball has earned the honor of becoming the first social network application to actually connect users of two social networks (Facebook and Bebo), and synchronously at that.
Bunchball consists of a set of Flash-based games: pool, arcade trivia, chess, sudoku, etc. When you initiate a game, you can choose to be matched with people from any social network that supports Bunchball (currently only Facebook and Bebo, but before long Friendster, Hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, Orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, and Six Apart as well). You can also opt to just play people from within your current social network (Facebook in my case) or just your college, workplace, region, etc.
I don’t presume that it was very hard for the developers of Bunchball to match users up across social networks once they had established the application on both Facebook and Bebo. Nor do I have any reason to believe that it really made a difference, as far as cross-network interactivity goes, that these two social networks essentially share the same platform. What seems to have mattered most is that numerous social networks have begun to make themselves available to developers, a trend that will accelerate as OpenSocial rolls out more fully in 2008. As this happens, we will see many more applications connect users regardless of their chosen social network, simply because they can run the same applications in several social environments and they have no reason to wall themselves off from each within which they reside.
Furthermore, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this happen in more substantial ways than just matching people up for games. Third-party applications may end up substantially downplaying the importance of each particular social network as they replicate the same functionality across networks. This trend may emerge particularly strongly if the social networks themselves resist opening up their social graphs to other networks while users demand interoperability. Whose to say that profiles and lists themselves may not end up being managed by third-party applications that conform to open standards? It’s not inconceivable, especially if one expects the social networks to continue their rush to please developers by providing them with ever-greater accessibility and tools with which to work.
I think that a BeBo-FaceBook alliance would put open social out of business instantaneously. Sounds good!
Hmmm interesting. I’d still like to have cross IM chats which isn’t here yet or is it (Meebo)?
InCircles had a nice app that could do this back in 2006
Good thoughts about how 2008 will be a year in which we see a shift away from the importance of the walled gardens toward user-demanded interoperability and freedom to take their data with them. A subject near and dear to my heart. My own spin on what’s happening, with a prediction for 2008: http://therealm...ction-for-2008/
I agreed with Everett.
I find this interesting but I would much prefer to have games that actually work more then 50% of the time on Skype. I think Skype is a huge opportunity that so far, hasn’t been given the development or vision it properly deserves for reasons unknown to me. Social networks are nice but Skype is the future (or other clones like it).
Jon
Interesting development. Now if only Moola would pick up on this and some more skill based games.
i am waiting for tech crunch to address this problem facing all startups and apps that use the net… the net slowing down…
http://www.econ...12B95467E5DF0F7
This is not that much different from the old Bunchball app which connected multiplayer gamers out on the open Web. EXCEPT, now that it is within the social nets, perhaps Bunchball will be able to amass enough of an audience so you’re not constantly waiting for someone to play against – something their previous offering suffered from.
Bunchball sounds interesting and awesome social site. Thank for sharing.
Cheers,
Elisha
Administrator
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Hey Duncan,
This is not the first cross-platform game. Warbook was actually the first to do this. I wrote about this the day before the Bebo platform launched:
http://www.soci...tform-tomorrow/
Perhaps that’s what the Bunchball press release said?
~Nick
Is this game written on top of the facebook api that facebook/bebo support. What kind of platform is this cross-platform game based on?
Baby steps but at least making some progress…
I think there is a lot of sense in these cross platform apps.
we at Copenda are now working on a matchmaking app for facebook which will allow you to connect people from other networks and dating sites.
What happens today in the IM world is another good example.
Lizi,
http://www.copenda.com
“I don’t presume”
“Nor do I”
“What seems to have mattered most”
“Furthermore”
“It’s not inconceivable, especially if one expects”
Get a writing style… and a life…
Speaking of babies, did anyone even check out the apps on Bebo? They’re so euro and in particular that Make A Baby one…. hahaha you’ll never see that stuff on Facebook.
Frankly the social graph means nothing in this context really. Twitter has the right idea.
P.S. someone remove spam post #16 please.
Playing games over the internet is the “social” thing’s future?
I told you people.
fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
I think this is the worst branding I’ve seen yet and that’s saying something. Bunchball?
Dumb and dumber…
This game social networking is going to need a broad social network alliance.
Nick O’Neill: Mark here =) I wasn’t aware that Warbook had similar cross-network interactivity; I’ll have to check it out. However, all applications on Bebo launched at the same time so if anything they both deserve the honor of being first.
We’re doing other very cool stuff off the socnets. And we’re hiring: http://www.bunchball.com/jobs
There is a cross IM chats app- It’s called 8hands,which also allows you to share media in the IM window by drag and drop.
It’s nice, cause you get all of your friends from all social networks into your own private social hub.
I think those games listed above(pool, chess…) are “turn based” while “real time” games would be more like a race game where you go head to head and can side swap the other player etc..
i meant “side swipe” ; )
Hey Mark,
Ah ok. I didn’t realize they were part of the launch. Interesting on the timing of this post
I guess there isn’t a lot of stuff to write about currently though!
Social network based games is a growing trend, which is gaining huge popularity. Gaming sites like Second Life played a major role in this domain. Even Facebook has added the feature to play games online on Facebook. We can say, Online games are the next social networks.
hi