As some of you know, I am a strong advocate of an evolution from the “walled garden” model of social networking toward an open Social Web, characterized by interoperability and data portability. Along the way, I have been both a cheerleader for all of the building blocks of the new “open stack” (including OpenID, OAuth, XRDS-Simple, microformats, Portable Contacts, and OpenSocial) and one of the most vocal critics of Facebook. Over the past two years, I have never missed a chance to point out Facebook’s absence from any key event or announcement around the “open” movement. And I’ve tried many different techniques to encourage Facebook down the open path, some more controversial than others.
