TRAACKR

Since yesterday’s announcements from Google and Facebook (a couple of hours apart) that they would both make their social ID standard available to all sites, the (micro)blogosphere has been quite active to look at the merits of each solution and try to predict who will emerge victorious.

Social data standards are paramount to TRAACKR and we’d like to chim in with our own point of view on the suject. So, Facebook or Google? WHO CARES??!?

No, seriously, who, outside of Facebook and Google, cares? We should just all be happy that this arm wrestling between the 2 giants is taking place because it means that standards are indeed converging, which is really all that matters.

Why should there even be 1 single standard? We tend to forget that the “winner takes all” approach to Web businesses doesn’t always hold true, far from it.

If OpenID and Facebook Connect are both adopted widely, it won’t be long before some small genius businesses (like yours truly) start building bridges between the major standards to unify them. I’d just be content  if we’re left dealing with only 2!

We only wish for this battle for standards to expand in scope and start including more social data types than basic social network info. It’s undoubtely the way it is going and the fact that both Google and Facebook are leading the charge will only accelerate this trend.

So our opinion on this? Keep on the good fight!

I was reading last night about the launch of Microsoft’s live search cashback, described in Sillicon Valley Insider as a “disruptive development”. Intrigued, I signed up this morning to try it. Painless process except that I had to remember my Hotmail password – not easy as I usually only use this account for spam…

After browsing and searching for products for 15mn, I’m still struggling to understand the value proposition. What’s the difference with Google Checkout that will celebrate its 2-year anniversary in 2 weeks?

How is the “cashback” of any interest to buyers? I know that the font is red and all to emphasize it’s important (see screenshot below), but really, who is going to look at anything else than the bottom line price of what they buy??? Ask airlines, they have been struggling with this for some time now…

Online shopping aggregators have made tremendous strives towards price transparency that has become the norm for online buying, so what’s the point of cashback? People will always look at the bottom line (price + tax if applicable – discounts/cashback + delivery) when they make decisions on a purchase.

If the idea is to be able to show exclusive deals for Live Search with cashback in the form of a discount, it only works as long as competing online retailers don’t align their prices, which they will undoubtedly do.

The only disruption I have found so far with Live Search Cashback is in the logic. What am I missing?

Last week, we announced the battle for standards for social data among Google, Yahoo! and Facebook (btw, let’s shed a tear for Microsoft, absent from this short list. They’ll probably come up with their own standards in 6 months, stay tuned).

Yesterday, the first shots were fired in this battle with Facebook announcing they will block Google’s Friend Connect, in the name of protecting their users privacy against Friend Connect substandard privacy policy.

In their words, ” At Facebook, we always look out for the privacy of our users”. Really? Charles, I have one word for you: beacon.

Anyways, no reason to elaborate on this as this move by Facebook lacked all subtlety and there is barely a need to read between the lines to understand why they did what they did. Little scared of Google, aren’t we?

Just like in any battles for standards, we can expect more fighting before things settle down. The good news for all of us is that once this is all in motion, the momentum is very hard to stop and standards will undoubtedly start converging.

Last night I had a nightmare. I sat at my computer, and my Vista morphed into a Web app called Woogle, which included a productivity suite, a default search page, alerts, news, a Web analytics page, and all my social networking stuff in one place (and much, much more, all for fwee). I turned around and saw Bill Gates gagged and tied to a nice Aeron chair. Sergei Brin was looking over my shoulder, wearing a photovoltaic-cell powered propeller cap and holding a Subway Veggie Patty footlong.

Seriously, if I had this kind of nightmare, I’d need to get my head checked; but it’s a nice way to start a rant about OpenSocial. On the surface it looks good: Facebook and LinkedIn are the bad guys, because they won’t do open social standards. Google gets a bunch of cool Web 2.0 players on the Friend Connect band wagon, liberates us from social networking tyranny, et voila.

Except it feels like world domination and Microsoft all over again (Woogle = World Google). This way, we’re going to end up with the Internet Explorer of social platforms.

And to quote Dave Winer, one of the hyperbright bulbs behind RSS and SOAP: “Standards devised by one tech company whose main purpose is to undermine another tech company, usually don’t work. In this case it’s Google trying to undermine Facebook. And I don’t think it’s going to work.” This was said a few months ago. OpenAlliance now has 26 members, so at least from a popularity standpoint, it’s working; but I agree with the sentiment, and the long-term lack of viability.

I’m not having conniptions over Woogle. Who cares in the end about who owns the mall, as long as you can shop there. But this increasingly feels like the mall’s security guards are keeping my wallet and hand it over to me every time I go shopping.

The only way to make sure you and I own our data is to have real open standards backed by companies, gov agencies, and the public – not the oxymoron that brings together the words “Open” and “Google”.

Traackr has been on the forefront of advocating for the standardization of users’ social data – see our article from a few weeks ago about this.

The calls for standardization have gotten a lot of traction this week, starting with MySpace announcing on Thursday they will join the DataPortability project and partner with eBay, Yahoo, and Twitter to share user social data.  The next day, Facebook and Digg announce a partnership of their own. Monday, Google will launch of “Friends connect”.

The battle for social data standards has started and the Traackr team couldn’t be happier. Whether Google, Facebook or MySpace manage to impose their standard, or even if we are left with 3 different standards (compared to no standards today), the real winner of this battle has already emerged: the user.

As for Traackr, we have been spending too much time up to this point to collect data in any way shape or form it was made available by the provider, and to normalize the data. As soon as some of these standards become real, we’ll be able to focus more time and attention where it is needed: give the data meaning for our users.

So kudos to Facebook, Twitter, Digg, MySpace, eBay, and Google.  Keep on the good fight!

Special note to our friends at LinkedIn: were you serious when you asked us to mail (with a stamp and all) you a request to participate in your Private Beta API? Read this post: the train is leaving the station and you’re not on it…