Do we really need fewer social networks?
The best I can tell, Dave Winer’s been pretty close to the mark with his predictions (here’s a golden oldie from the around turn of the century). So I was surprised to see such a brazen little called shot so depressingly wrong…
Ponzi: “How do we decide how many social networks is enough? Are there any central tools that can load all our info for us into multiple sites?”
The answer to the first question, imho, is: 1.
To the second, no, not until we know which one is the answer to the first question.
One? What?!
The answer to the first question, imho, is more like 1:1! That is, one social network for every person — that should be enough. But given the tools, we’ll no doubt segment ourselves even further into our different identities or communities of practice: our personal brands.
It’s been happening for a while now, and microformats and tools like WordPress are just a start. We need another Googlized silo like we need more DRM-infected content; it accomplishes about as much…
And no, it wouldn’t matter if it’s a shiny new startup with a snazzy API or the crap backwater brought to us by Rupert friggin’ Murdoch and the good people at NewsCorp.
As for that second question — that’s about the only use we’ll have for centralized services, but hell, even that could be open and federated.
The answer isn’t one central network — just like in the real world, it’s infinitely many; interacting. Of course, I wouldn’t expect one of the developers of SOAP to say something like this. But I can’t figure out how one of the developers of RSS and OPML and countless blogging tools wouldn’t!
Oh the irony.