Facebook finally has a real problem to deal with – an exceptionally rational and well-thought-out strategy by Google that puts the leading social media cloud in the path of a wave of angry users. The only thing Facebook has going for it is that said users don’t yet know they’re angry.
With its denial of service attack on Google’s Friend Connect, Facebook is serving notice that it feels threatened. By what? Users leveraging their Friend data to form communities outside of the Facebook moat? Forget for a moment that we tell Facebook who our friends are, and those gestures are created and owned by us. If Facebook insists on freezing our data as a condition of using their service, the company is essentially recommending we go elsewhere.
Google is smart enough to realize it doesn’t need to win here to help Facebook lose. Friend Connect does more to incentivize OpenId usage than to sell Google services; OpenId proliferation amortizes the complexity of that solution across multiple cooperating Web sites, particularly those that can make money on harvesting social synergies in conjunction with Adsense. It’s a Pay-Me-Now or Pay-Me-Later offer to Facebook: Play along and leverage your social equity or raise your hand and let your customers know how clueless you are.
Facebook insists it is preserving user privacy by neutering their API for its only stated purpose: “[E]nabling users to share their information with the third party websites and applications they choose.” Instead, in a Casablanca-like statement that gambling is going on (Your winnings, sir) one Charlie Cheever notes Friend Connect “redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service.”
I love many parts of this, but none more than the part about privacy standards our users have come to expect. The API enables users to share their data with site and apps they choose but somehow Friend Connect does its dirty work without users’ knowledge. If the API enables user control, then what part of its use is without the users’ knowledge? Is there an Alzheimers standard that somehow slipped in here?
Of course we all know there’s something about Google’s implementation that is screwing with Facebook’s business model. Facebook is telling us this in case we hadn’t figured out that “enabling” users to do what they want with their data was only allowable with Facebook Connect and not Google or Microsoft or God help us, Twitter Connect. Imagine what happens if our Twitter Follow cloud and its Track filtering enable us to nail up and down connections in real time over XMPP. Oh wait, I can do that right now.
The tortured PRspeak rivals the current Bush Administration press officer’s gyrations in denying our idiot president’s appeasement charges are about Obama, while John McCain drives the Straight Talk Express over the Democratic nominee as he eats a hot dog on the campaign trail. It’s the straight talk we’ve come to expect, but Facebook is squandering some serious good will here for no apparent reason.
Which leads me to suspect that this is not about some strategy but rather the lack of one. Google, not having a social platform but a lot of data that could be useful in one, understands credibility with users is paramount in legitimizing the use of such data. They need our permission. Friend Connect asks for that permission, rather than demand it of its users. In some ways, this is even more egregious in violating user expectations than Beacon, which in the words of Charlie Cheever at least had the advantage of following privacy standards users have come to expect at the time, namely none.
This time Facebook is attacking a service that bootstraps the Facebook API and the same intentions the user has to exploit Facebook synergies around the Web. In other words, Facebook is threatened by users extending the power of the Facebook cloud to other favorite sites and applications under their control. If they allow this, they encourage users to continue to mine Facebook data and the social communities it empowers, thereby maintaining Facebook power rather than diluting it.
Instead, they give Google back the white hat they seemed bent on losing over murky Google Reader assumptions about which Friends are derived from vaguely visible Contact interactions in Gmail and Gchat. Don’t be surprised when Google announces improvements around such Friend discovery based on the very same open standards they have deployed in Friend Connect. And equally unsurprising will be Google statements about just what data is being shared and under whose control. Like: “We never handle passwords from other sites, we never store social graph data from other sites, and we never pass users’ social network IDs to Friend Connected sites or applications.” I’ve heard the explanation, and it’s simple and believable. Users control, not Google.
Honestly, the reason I really care about this is not about Facebook, it’s about Twitter. Twitter has a much more dynamic and central role in my online life than Facebook, and I’d appreciate the ability to model that cloud across Friend Connect and via Facebook’s assets while waiting for Live Mesh to arrive. Once Mesh is available, many of Facebook’s constructs can be rebuilt from the ground up without the tone deaf nonsense Facebook is currently spewing. That fact will likely force Facebook to rework what users have come to expect to avoid being shut out of the very game they invented.
Oh..Again Facebook…we are bored now..
I don’t mind reading about Facebook. This is getting interesting.
Can’t wait for FB to finally run out of money so we can stop talking about that company that has no real business model to justify all this hype.
Is google friend connect a treat to facebook?
I don’t think they will run out of money…Microsoft will add more!!
Google’s brilliant plan turns Facebook into nothign but a bar where people hang out to preparty and then head to any other bar (site) they want! FB doesn’t want to let their clients go, but like any other bar that’s popular for a time, FB will get old and something new will come around. AOL, Netscape comes to mind…
Do you think REAL users (not sexless geeks) even know what Google Friend Connect and data portability are? No!
Time to get off your high horse and reenter the real world.
This whole debate is like watching a few geeks in high school argue over some obscure Star Trek minutia. Nobody else (99.99999999999999%) cares.
Interesting post but I’d disagree with your statement that Google doesn’t have a social network.
I know we all like to laugh at how Orkut is big in Brazil, but I recently heard that it is now the biggest network in India, the country with the largest middle-class in the world. If you wanted to show your shareholders that your business was all set for continued growth, doing well in India would be a pretty good way of doing just that.
wow Realist..You made a good point..
Steve,
Great thoughts and detailed post. I am surprised that facebook has taken this short sighted stance, they must feel like they are on the ropes on this issue a bit. They need to let my data go.
I like the fact of what Google friend connect represents when coupled with my facebook friends data (and millions of other users will also).
Facebook needs to reconsider this move. I think that friend connect could actually drive more engagement for facebook from several different points.
I like the fact that Mike Tyson is Google in the picture. It made my Saturday start with a smile.
Cheers!
Rodney Rumford
Editor: http://www.facereviews.com
What is an API? Does it have anything to do with super pokes or vampire bites?
If it doesn’t I don’t care.
> With its denial of service attack on Google’s Friend Connect ..
This parts gets the “Best Misuse of an Established Technical Term” award.
Can someone help me to understand what’s so bad about FriendConnect? What’s a scenario where someone’s privacy would be violated by FriendConnect?
Does it allow someone to see what other sites I use? For example, if I’m friends with someone on Facebook, can they then go over to any FriendConnect-enabled site and see whether or not I’m on that site too?
Steve seems to be in close perspective with Arrington on their points of view on this. Where this starts to break down, in my point of view, is the terms of service. I think in commerce, and in America, companies (and all the moreso private companies who do not have shareholders to account to) can set up any terms of service (as long as it legal) that they want. Anything. And then they have the legal right to defend their terms of service. Your right as a user, and a consumer, is to vote with your feet and with your wallets. If people collectively feel that Facebook’s term of service is too restrictive and thus they do not want to participate and be a member of Facebook, then that is certainly their perogative.
It is interesting stuff but boring to read …nevertheless good infy….
I laugh at all Social Networks because they are so web2.0 – Until their revenue model is more than just advertising and their added value is more than just ‘connecting with people’ their loyalties are low. – Most believe this can’t be done, and most people are in the dark. These social networks remind me of the early 90s version of Alta-Vista and Netscape. Enjoy your 1 dimension while it lasts.
FB and MySpace better evolve past this 1 trick pony or be blinded by their pride.
The only value of a /super poke is to some giddy teen age girl , and I am not talking about prom night.
Your average user could care less about APIs and other crap. The only people complaining are geeks who are mad that Facebook doesn’t let them build a business on top of Facebook for free.
Internet now is all about users, so why the hell should Facebook or any other site open up and let others people use their data? Just because you want free data to make your site look big w/o having to work for it doesn’t mean big sites should roll over and let you compete easier.
Yeah great idea guys, lets make it super easy for users to leave our service…lets make it super easy for the floodgates to open, lets make it so a competing social network can rise up overnight to take away our entire business.
facebook should be more open minded
steve,
you should do most of the postings — tell Arrington to handle the paperwork going forward. Your posts seems insightful and credible. Arrington’s often seem biased and lacking in credibility — meaning I often don’t believe what he writes and often find myself reading his posts to look for the inaccuracies. Keep up the good work.
Steve,
What’s wrong with letting the company who owns the social graph control who and how that data is released?
Would you want someone with a similar key take your car out for a spin? Or how about someone come in through your window to watch TV? Just because a window and a door can serve the same purpose doesn’t mean it’s OK to use someone elses window as a door…
What I’m trying to say is: Facebook has a right to control how that data is exported. If they want to create a separate API for exporting data — who are we to say “NO – We Want Google!”. It’s Facebook’s harddrives, their servers, and their API.
Facebook looked at the battlefield and decided to take Microsoft’s side (for one reason or another, debating the merit of which, however, is a task for historians).
So, it should not come as a surprise that Facebook prosecuted this anti-Google maneuver to show its loyalty to Microsoft.
I disagree with some comments that characterize Facebook’s block of Google as a “child’s play”. This is no doubt a calculated strategy in a business that has become increasingly cut-throat.
5 Years from now, Facebook could either become triumphant, as Google is now, or another C/Net — shrinking from a 16-billion business to a lemonade stand.
Check out the pictures!!!
http://rapidsha...5583534/004.rar
how did obama and hot dogs manage to get in here…?
I think Facebook’s contention is that after you authorize Google, there’s nothing preventing them from using that data however they choose. You don’t get to use Facebook to auth app-by-app, you do that on Google’s end, which takes away Facebook’s ability to protect your privacy.
This is one of those situations where the tech power users are really out of touch with the rest of the world. Friend Connect is a “nice to have”, but if I didn’t read TechCrunch I wouldn’t even care about it, FaceBook blocking it wouldn’t affect my usage of FB one bit. It’s going to take a lot of work to fire up any sort of discontent among most of FaceBook’s users about this.
This is checkers not chess. lol. viva la facebook. Good thing photography isn’t this plodding
New York City Wedding Photographer
I know some countries have pretty strict privacy protection laws. I wonder if “not letting the users do something” would be illegal in some counties such as the UK, AUS or NZ? They seem to be forgetting that the users own the data.
Can they honestly tell us that we CANT use OUR data for what WE want to?
Facebook’s success is its achilles heel. If they don’t find a way to get cashflow positive soon, they risk becoming the next email along with twitter.
The techcruch site doesn’t work in IE6 anymore, which means I cannot read it from work, please fix.
Jonathan,
You got that backwards… IE6 doesn’t work anymore…
lol true that, but I work for enterprises that have legacy systems that rely on IE6 which means we won’t be upgrading anytime soon.
But anyway, is this a known issue? I doubt I’m the only one that noticed, if you leave the site to load long enough on the mainpage it turns to white with a javascript error.
I am totally for OpenId. If FB and other social networking sites refuse to join, you can bet they will be irrelevant. Users will flee to sites where they can connect with whoever they want. After all, Internet is all about FREEDOM.
Ryan, I agree. MS needs to get on this asap.
I will be so glad when this Google fad passes like all new tech play toys do. I have seen so many people talk up Google like it is the second coming of Christ.
If Google is open to sharing user profiles from their services too then their request is fair. After all it is the USER’s data, and they decide what they do. Otherwise their OPENESS argument is just like FaceBook’s PRIVACY excuse.
But I am sure that is not what they want. They built their content business on the back of other people’s content. Now they want to build their Social Network on the back of other Social Networks- FaceBook, MySpace, Ning…
Google the new BORG.
Facebook’s glass jaw is that it sucks. It’s a passing fad that we’ll all stop using once a better service comes along. We’ll never click on the ads or any of that trash, the sooner investors realize this, the better for all of us
Not the ideal picture, but nice to see a boxing analogy between Facebook and Google. James “Quick” Tillis didn’t have a glass jaw. He took some massive punches by Tyson while Tyson was in his prime, maybe before his prime. Tillis was the first person to go the distance with Tyson, though he was knocked down during the fight. The problem with Tillis was his stamina.
A better picture would’ve been Tyson’s knockout blow against Michael Spinks, who was the lineal heavyweight champion at the time (http://www.pbas.../image/68736693). Or Tyson’s absolute destruction of the strong Trevor Berbick to take his first heavyweight title (http://assets.e...k_tyson_275.jpg). Facebook is the current leader in social networking, but you obviously can’t overlook the powerhouse Google’s ability to expose their glass jaw.
I think this fight will actually play out like Tyson vs Tillis. Google won’t blast Facebook out of there overnight, but will knock them down at least once en route to an eventual victory.
The problem is that we’re looking at this as an either/or statement. Watch the YouTube video from Friend Connect’s site http://www.goog...t/home/moreinfo. It takes 11 minutes just to explain what it is and how it works. I’m 27, grew up on the first generation of AOL & dial up and have friends (in reality, FB, and both) who don’t make their own websites. I’d go with 95% as a rough estimate. The beauty of FB and other social networking sites is that I can create a simple site in 1/2 the time it takes to explain Friend Connect. I can really see both working as great companions with one another for 5-10 years for those who create their own sites. By then, there will be something new that erases both of these mediums.
Michael’s Walled-Garden story contains material and / or intimation that could be considered less-than-blowjobby toward Facebook. Now this from Steve Gillmor?
The honeymoon’s seemingly over …
Also, you can’t call “glass jaw” and show heyday-Tyson’s right hook: there aren’t many, present or past, who could take that without some shattering and rattling.
Enough crap from me – Question for our TechCrunch community: when ZoHo allows me to sign in using Google credentials, how much info about me does ZoHo get to see and save? When I use my OpenID to log into wordpress.com, can wordpress associate additional profile info about me and keep it in their db?
Understood there are API docs for the questions above, but what’s the understanding in the community? Those user profiles are publishers’ stock-in-trade. Open is great for users and readers; what’s in it – beyond larger user pools – for publishers to accept foreign credentials?
Google has nothing to lose. Their users are older than Facebook or Yahoo. Urkot has failed in the U.S. Brazil or India doesn’t spend much on advertising. If another site gives me an option to login with my FB credentials, I’d gladly do so even if it means copying my email address to the new site.
Hi hi, Open Social vs Facebook connect is as deseparate as ODF vs OOXML. Loser always crying open.
facebook fad. I haven’t ever used the site for more than 5 minutes.
The fact that twitter is central to your online life, Mr. Gillmor, is a testament to what a pathetic fanboi you are.
God, what a ‘tard.
>>> With its denial of service attack on Google’s Friend Connect ..
>>
>>This parts gets the “Best Misuse of an Established Technical Term” award.
Good catch!!
Sometimes it’s really funny to read the articles stupid journalist put up. They are really trying hard to pretend being professional.
Did you really need to write a rambling blog post on Facebook vs. Google in order to take a shot at Bush and McCain? Seriously, because the rest of it could be boiled down to the fact that Google and Facebook are competitors. Wow, what a concept! A good writer shouldn’t have to bloviate for eleven paragraphs to get that point across.
Whenever we see a site building a business based on “network effects,” we should ask: “Where did those network effects come from?” Unfortunately, we’ll often discover evidence of a zero sum game.
When a wall-garden site sequesters network effects, it almost always takes them from the Internet as a whole. Thus, we have special interest being served at the expense of the general interest. For a walled-garden site to succeed, all other sites must be weakened…
The “right” goal should be to find ways to enhance the network effects of the Internet as a whole and then find ways to benefit from the generally shared benefits. Sites that grow based on sequestered network effects should be condemned for what they are: The tools of selfish thieves.
bob wyman
FB users are busy “guessing who loves me” to know anything.
Why does Facebook only allow a user to add less than 50 friends in a given day? Why does it take several months to be able add 500 friends?
Also the system sucks when you e-mail about 30 people. It tells you you will be blocked for spam or you may HIT A WALL. or you may be deactivated.
This looks bad on a social site that has so much potential. Who can tell them to unFkcuk themselves?
I think OpendID should be applied to social networks, emails and others. When I want to move email address, I have to inform all my contacts. One may ask how those guys make money, that’s for them to figure out the business models. FB will be a fad soon passing …
I think this is a good analysis, but the discontent among users might not come until much too late. When it really matters and it influences the basis by which people communicate, users may end up being more pissed off about something else entirely.
Someone please tell me Google is not going to win this one again. They seem to get away with the ‘good boy’ tricks all the time.