Social Network Designers: Adopt OpenID
Posted 11/30/2006 10:05:00 AM |
In the past, I've done a good deal of writing explaining how to design better and more relevant SNS. Today I offer designers of social network sites my single most valuable piece of advice: Adopt OpenID.
If you are a designer of an upstart social networking site, you know the key problem: attracting critical mass. Even if you design the most relevant, most blogged about SNS in the world, it is difficult to attract users into your network. However, the cool stuff doesn't start happening in a SNS until the people are there. People need to find their friends, they need to be able to send messages and pokes and whatever. Social networks are, well, social - and if you don't have the people you don't have much.
The critical challenge in bringing in the people is convincing them to sign up to your site. And that is a challenge. First, they've got to hear about you. Next, they have to have a reason to join your site. And finally, if you're really lucky, enough people will join your site to give that segment of users a decent user experience. However, people can't and don't want to be active on too many social network sites. We simply don't have the time to spend checking messages and keeping up with all the action in all those different walled gardens. So that's why we all join Myspace and Facebook, and not your social network.
So the "build it and they will come" proposition is false. That worked for a few sites but it won't work for yours. So how do you innovate? You think outside the box. Imagine if when you signed up for a gmail.com email address, you could only email other gmail.com users. That's completely silly, right? Noone would use gmail because we want to be able to email people at yahoo, hotmail and AOL as well. When I sign up to a social networking site, I'm not able to message people on Facebook, MySpace or Bebo. I am only able to message people on the SNS I join. This is fundamentally flawed. The good news is that you have the power to change this.
Our SNS profiles are little URL-based identities. It just so happens that there is a huge movement gathering steam called OpenID that is entirely based around URL-based identities. Imagine this scenario: I have a Facebook, by my friend has a Myspace. If these two sites were enabled with OpenID, I could add my friend's Myspace to my Facebook. They would show up as a friend on my list, I would be able to message them - they would be a part of my social network. Now, of course, when you clicked on their profile, you would be transported to their Myspace page, but you'd also see me on their Myspace. There would be true cross-pollination, and we'd be able to establish our identity on the SNS that best reflects our interest and personality. We wouldn't have to join a SNS that makes us feel uncomfortable simply because there was a large network there. This is fundamentally the same thing as allowing us to all have our own email addresses - which is a system I think we all agree works to our liking (no we don't wall want Gmail addresses - we want choice!)
So, the problem here is that the big players - Myspace, Facebook - they have no incentive to open up. They want to keep their sites walled gardens, and they don't want to offer you choice. But as we well know, there are lots of other social networking sites out there - and they are looking for a foothold, something new and interesting that would let them get a foothold against the big players. So what if they did something revolutionary - they sort of worked together. If these SNS players adopted OpenID, people would be able to join a social network, and start adding their friends from other networks. They'd get a user experience that is a lot more satisfying than other sites. Designers of SNS - you just have to make peace with the fact that people want different things, different SNS - once you make peace with this OpenID just flows naturally.
The beauty of this system is that it is simple. We don't need huge overarching schemas or new protocols. All you have to do is leverage OpenID, and be a little creative. The OpenID 2.0 schema has a robust namespace, so you can use it to do things like exchange messages, profile pictures, etc. But you don't really have to do all that much. You've just got to let people connect.
OpenID is a ground-up, democratic system. This means that the small guys have to adopt it first. If Myspace or Facebook want to play, that's awesome, but I don't think they will. So there is a little leap of faith, but it is a great gamble. Since we added OpenID support to ClaimID, it has only been extremely positive for us. The best news is that the OpenID community is growing, and companies like JanRain and Verisign will even help you get up and running (they even offer OpenID hosting!). There's a ton of open source code out there - and if ClaimID can retrofit their website with OpenID, I know you can.
The walled gardens will stay with us, but walled gardens in social network sites need to be a thing of the past. Imagine the pitch - you can add friends from any OpenID network to your SNS. This has huge, democratic possibilities. This feels natural for SNS - walled gardens don't. If you'd like to find out more about OpenID, you can refer to this primer I wrote about it on the ClaimID blog, or you can email me and I can help put you in touch with folks who will be able to help you. Once you grasp OpenID, and see how naturally it works with SNS, you'll see what a valuable direction it is to take your product.
OpenID is coming - the tipping point grows closer each day. This is a tremendous opportunity - and I do hope you'll consider it seriously. This is the way of the future.
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10 Comments: (Post a Comment)
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At November 30, 2006 12:37 PM,
jkd said...
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Yes! Preach it, Brother Fred!
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At November 30, 2006 1:46 PM,
Brett A. Bumgarner said...
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I like it ... I like it a lot!
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At December 01, 2006 4:19 AM,
said...
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Let flowers blosom before your feet and birds sing in the trees that will grow anywhere you go! For Thy is the true prophet of openness & innovation hand in hand!
Who just heckled "That tree stuff. . . Not very convenient for a librarian: books aren't going to like it. . ."? Who?
Seriously: you couldn't have waited for me to finish that paper on open standards, could you? Those young coders. . . no respect for the academia anymore.
The upside of waiting would have been that you'd have realised EVEN for MySpace & FaceBook, OpenID is good:
- the market is not saturated, and open standard will only make it grow (up to the same size as e-mail & web surfing, Yes-M'am that big);
- heterophily among friends (some prefer MySpace features other FaceBook stuff) can hinger users for MySpace too;
- off the box innovation is good even for MySpace: they can leverage, buy-out or copy an SNS concept that proved good, even though Murdoch wouldn't believe in it.
However democratic having MyTinyPunkSpace join OpenID, your project will work if you convince the two big ones to join; think W3C: neither of the two main browser abide the standard --- who cares? And you will not convince them by boasting that even the makers of it expect it to topple them off their comfy monopoly.
Anyway: Preach on, Brother Fred
(Is this the Official Trademarked Name?) -
At December 01, 2006 2:47 PM,
Fred Stutzman said...
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Bertil - I absolutely agree. Lets make a persuasive argument for Myspace and Faceook to adopt OpenID. Of course it works for them - it creates lock-in, it makes profiles more valuable...yes. This might be my next blog post ;)
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At December 01, 2006 3:03 PM,
Joe Suh said...
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I think back to IM - most of the major players have been around for 10+ years and it wasn't until Trillian, Meebo, etc came along about a year ago to allow interoperability between IM clients.
Do you think social networks will adopt open standards much sooner? I'm all for it, but I don't think niche social network users are on other niche social networks just yet (and won't be for at least a couple years). I think it'll be a chicken-egg problem if neither of the big boys (myspace and facebook) adopt it. -
At December 01, 2006 3:31 PM,
said...
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Joe,
IM is:
1. more personal: you allow people to bother you any time you work or watch a DVD. That correspond to special ties, that are much more clustered (paper ongoing on this one, so excuse my unclearliness): these ties are mostly separated groups, small islands, that can do whatever they want. You don't have Madonna IMing to the world, so who cares if 60% of the market is held by the much unknown-here purely chinese QQ? While if Madonna is on MTV China, talking big time of how cool is her MySpace page, her not having a Ho-My-Py is worrisome.
2. you can have several clients (actually, that's what I still do, and the only thing Meebo or Trillian does): your CPU might whine --- while filling in, updating, handling and trying to find back that messages on several SNS profiles. . . That's too much work.
And I'd also argue that ten of those years are worth three of today's years---but that's another issue, and I presume you are not familiar with Daniel Halevy.
Fred,
I'm not sure I agree with --- or rather that you agree with me --- but if you are going to make a post about it. . . Just to make my point more detailed, and to start to elaborate a strategy:
- you need to have YouTube adopt it first;
How? isn't Google all about Open-ness? and (more seriously) they will then be able to make far more services available that way, without leaving they comfortable niche of "replacing TV.
Why? That the next biggest player, and it will make OpenID credible to giants' eyes.
- then go for the FaceBook: Open-ness, without having to leave the walled garden, without having to be responsible for those ugly MySpace page, and no need to care about whether or not you should have a .edu in your e-mail.
Then, if friendly Tom sticks to his gun, people will have to chose any SNS, or MySpace. YouTube channels, or MySpace. That ?ber-hypish Finn mobile SNS, or MySpace. . . Considering your Mom doesn't want you any where near that stalker-ridden MySpace anyway. . . ;o)
Or Murdoch is as clever as I think he is, adopts a standard roughtly (presumably his), and wonders in the press the next day: "How come no other SNS has adopted it yet?" -
At December 01, 2006 3:40 PM,
Larry Halff said...
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Since we've just implemented OpenID at Ma.gnolia, I obviously agree. One of the most exciting things about what's happening with OpenID is that this is another great opportunity for agile innovators to become leaders by example, showing the 500 pound gorillas a better way. Even more exciting is that in this case, we can do it in a way that makes our services more valuable, and not just replaced, when the larger players join.
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At December 02, 2006 3:23 AM,
Fred Stutzman said...
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Joe, I think that the market will drive niche social networks to look for interesting ways to generate attention and network effects. By leveraging openID, any social network could have network effects without the need to all the people to join at first. it is a very strong incentive if you ask me.
I also think the big players could stand to gain alot from this (and Bertil, reading your post, I think we may be off on tangets) - but imagine Facebook's problem. As users age out of the Facebook, they are going to explore new SNS. So what about if Facebook went OpenID and let people use their Facebook OpenID to explore new SNS. They'd get the full benefit of playing nice and they'd likely retain customers longer.
Man...thinking about how OpenID and Social Networks go together so bloody perfectly makes my head spin. I need to give a talk on this....something that could be recorded. Anyone have good ideas? Maybe I should just draw some pictures but I am useless in photoshop. -
At July 30, 2007 3:51 PM,
said...
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I am looking for a social network web designer...is there and organization or site I can visit to locate someone?
Thanks
prestoncompany@aol.com -
At July 22, 2008 5:23 PM,
fred said...
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Update: Myspace adopts OpenID:
