friend connect

It’s interesting to read the interplay between Scoble and Andreesen from yesterday about how Google’s new Friend Connect stacks up against Ning and, by extension, other build-your-own social networks.

If I actually understand Friend Connect correctly, and I probably don’t, it’s not really designed to replace the creation of social networking features even in corporate environments. We’ve talk to various potential clients about creating social networks of their own, and often a lot of the value (from a business standpoint) comes from owning the platform underneath.

Which is the opposite of what Friend Connect does.

Friend connect essentially extends the footprint of existing OpenSocial networks, much in line with the data portability steps that are going on at MySpace and Facebook.

So installing Friend Connect widgets on your corporate site instead of using a Ning or custom-grown or white-label social networking solution is basically ceding your business network to one of the existing players. I don’t think that will be an attractive solution to many companies.

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