You can check us out on OpenSocialSphere.com

Great presentation by Brad Fitzpatrick and David Recordon at the Web 2.0 Summit last month.

Written by guest writer Foley

3 words. Pandemic. Mullet. Beacon.

You’ll probably never see those 3 words in the same sentence, paragraph, or even book. Well, it is in one book - Facebook. Rumor has it those three words are codewords for Facebook’s newest money making scheme.

Facebook has a fairly diverse range of revenue stream, ranging from flyers, virtual gifts, polls, sponsored groups, negotiating an inflated valuation for investment money, etc… To add to the growing list is screwing Facebook application developers and stripping users of more privacy. How so? Here’s what the rumored code projects are.

Pandemic: Removing sponsored groups pages on Facebook.

Mullet: Replacing the sponsored groups page with more a more interactive page consisting of games and applications.

Beacon: Following a Facebook user’s footprint across the web in order to collect more information and serve more relevant ads.

There are over 5,000 Facebook applications. 87% of the usage come from 84 of the applications. The other 4,916 applications were guinea pigs for Facebook. Now knowing what applications interest users, Facebook can recreate the applications, charge companies to sponsor them, channel Facebook users to the application, and profit. The original creative brains behind the application are left to rot and pay off the debt incurred from hosting the Facebook applications. Of course, they can always create something for OpenSocial.

Though what Facebook could do to the application developers is disturbing, what frightens me more is Beacon. The concept is not new - cookie tracking. However, with the private data Facebook already has with their users, they can potential link the movies you list under “Favorite Movies” and run ads for those genres whenever you visit Amazon.com.

To make users feel there is a social benefit, if you purchase a movie at Amazon.com, you can publish it on your newsfeed. Of course, Amazon.com is happy because it is free advertising for them. Facebook is happy, because they’ll get a cut from the click. You’re happy, because the person you’ve been meaning to ask out saw that you purchased their favorite movie, and invited themselves over to watch it with you. You hope that everything you’ve done together through the “X Me” application will be done in real life.

As euphoric as that scenario sounds, there is another side to the coin. Say, a short time later your date wants to “X Me” (use your imagination). You go online and purchase more items from Amazon: A case of 1000 condoms, whip, or other unmentionables. Well, I think you get the point.

Whoops! You forgot to opt out and your purchases get sent to your news feed. Depending on your circle of friends, your friends list will either quadruple the next day, it go down to 0. Most likely though, it will fall somewhere between 0, and 0. Yes, even your mother removed you as a friend. Facebook as an entity, who not only much of your information, but also the ability to distribute it to your friends, has a large responsibility to protect its users. With Facebook set to go IPO sometime in the near future, their first responsibility will soon shift to their stock holders.

What Google and DoubleClick does with cookie tracking has been under a lot of scrutiny, but now when combined with the social aspect of Facebook as well as the evil aurora that surrounds Microsoft, it does not paint a pretty picture. Facebook will try to convince everyone the data will be private - but the recent leak of Facebook employees monitoring the profiles you view, we all know that the system can and will be abused.

Like always, only a minority of the Facebook user will realize what is going on. But when something goes astray it will be too late.

False rumors, accusations, finger-pointing, and the classic case of he says/she says is undermining the true value of OpenSocial, that is to open up the web and making it more transparent.

The question is, was all of the rumors and he says/she says an elaborate PR strategy by all parties involved, or honest mistakes due to the OpenSocial news frenzy?

Examples? Sure:

Rumors

• Facebook Raises Another $500 Milion

Rumors from the Facebook funding frenzy had the company seeking $750 million from the get-go. And during yesterday’s almost content-free conference call, Facebook’s Owen Van Natta refused to rule out the notion that the company had raised more capital than MSFT’s.

• Facebook Rumors: Making Friends with More investors

Two hedge funds from New York have apparently jumped into the Facebook deal.We’ve got our ear to the ground to figure out who it is but each put in about $250 million–for $500 million total–at the same valuation as Microsoft Corp.

• Facebook Taps Into Hedge Funds For $500 Million More?
  

On the conference call yesterday, Microsoft exec Kevin Johnson implied there might be other investors involved when he said, “If you look at this round of financing they are doing that we are in for $240 million . . .”

Rumors Squashed

• Jim Breyer: Extra $500 Million Round For Facebook A “Total Fiction”
  

I asked Breyer point blank about the second ghost tranche. And he told us point blank:”Those reports last week were a total fiction.”

He Says/She Says

• Facebook: “We Have Not Been Briefed On OpenSocial”

When we asked them if they were planning on joining, Brandee Barker, Director of corporate communications at Facebook, responded:

Despite reports, Facebook has still not been briefed on OpenSocial. When we have had a chance to understand the technology, then Facebook will evaluate participation relative to the benefits to its 50 million users and 100,000 platform developers.

Update: From a trusted source:

People in the know have indicated to me that Facebook and Google have been talking about OpenSocial…including today. So pleading ignorance won’t last as a strategy for dealing with the OpenSocial movement.

By far the most insightful and exciting story (IMHO) about/related to OpenSocial came from Michael Krigsman of ZDNet. Michael explained how Robert Scoble was able to share news and information from the OpenSocial press conference through twitter. I highly recommend reading Michael’s recount of the hidden and improvised OpenSocial press conference.

Bear in mind, all this was performed by individuals using free software, with no infrastructure beyond an ordinary Internet connection.

This provocative set of events arose completely spontaneously, rooted in opportunity and circumstance, and offers a glimpse of how information will be shared and consumed in the future.

The web is better when it’s social

The web is more interesting when you can build apps that easily interact with your friends and colleagues. But with the trend towards more social applications also comes a growing list of site-specific APIs that developers must learn.

OpenSocial provides a common set of APIs for social applications across multiple websites. With standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can create apps that access a social network’s friends and update feeds. (via code.google.com/apis/opensocial/)

Can OpenSocial attract a new crop of developers who will shift focus from the current simple, cute toy apps to more advance apps?

After weeding through countless stories about OpenSocial on Techmeme, Wired gave a small glimpse of hope into the future of social networks that is beyond biting your friends or turning them into zombies.

In fact, the company is going to demo one such app called the Conference Calendar at a Google event this week. According to Nash, the new app will automatically know what industry you work in (based on your LinkedIn profile) and subsequently spit out a series of relevant upcoming conferences based on this info.

Once again, Techcrunch got the scoop on the OpenSocial alliance that has gotten a lot more interesting, and bigger in terms of user base, with the addition of Myspace, Bebo and SixApart. (See a Video demo of Flixster integrated into a Myspace profile - via zdnet)

Sure, it’s easy to say that the addition of Myspace, the behemoth social network, will give the OpenSocial alliance a fighting chance against Facebook’s torrid growth, but will the infusion of thousands of apps be good for these partners?

The news about Myspace as the new partner has been echoed throughout the blogosphere, but I find the most interesting analysis and insights coming from the commenters.

Here are some of the comments that I find interesting as it comes from people who can careless about the PR battle between the participating partners, but care more about the value that these social networks are providing them.

Whatever happened to users/customers first?

Checkmate? I don’t think so. The entire point of social networks is the NETWORK, not the additional apps. With all of the social platforms now going to have the same available third-party apps, what is there to differentiate them from Facebook?……the answer is where your network is at be it friends or colleagues such as in LinkedIn. On top of that, it still isn’t clear whether or not open platforms are successful at the user end. For teens the third-party apps might be, but for the mid-20’s and up I am not so sure. OpenSocial will have no affect on Facebook’s numbers. Other strategies might, but it will be hard to separate the causes from the effects if, for instance, you start seeing a change in Facebook growth. (JasonH)

wow, this is pretty crazy. What I find most funny about all this is OpenSocial makes it easier to do exactly what I can’t stand at Facebook, the millions of stupid apps!

I really liked facebook before, but as soon as they opened their API, it seems like I get 10 requests a day to join the zombie force or send someone alcohol. What a waste of time…

Have you seen some of the pages people setup too? I swear, I need a super computer at my desk to process all the Javascript required to load 100 apps on a single profile.

I think the complete opening of the API is where Facebook miss stepped. They should have put a lot more regulation into it… (Chris)

I think many are missing the point here, thinking this is some fb vs the world or good vs facebook war. It is rather a very significant effort to tie together the social net together and get a vast majority of web app developers working on common ground… I’m more interested at the moment how this will enhance the Six Apart network, which I use all the time. (shevdog)

This is a good thing for everyone.

The natural flow of evolution for a lot of successful systems usually goes through some process of standardization. Its great that the phenomenon of social networks is going to get blessed with a standard so early on. One does not have be altruist to propose a standard and its great to see Google slamming a stake in the ground and the other big guys willing to prop it up. The “right” thing to do would be to be competitive and fight the battles while adhering to the standard. If some of the big social networks break away and start a standards war, it would not help anyone.

Fragmenting consumers is about fighting for a piece of the pie. Consolidating consumers is about making the pie bigger. With a standard which not only allows one application to be used by many social networks but also allows cross social network communication; everyone will win.

I just wish that other online applications which are fragmented (most notably the photo sites) would also come together under a standard. (ayush)

(Image via Techcrunch)

As expected, Orkut will allow developers to start developing apps on their sandbox tonight. While Ning and Hi5 have shown screenshots of apps (iLike and Flixster) integrated on their networks, both networks and the other partners are not ready to let developers access their “container” until later this year and possibly early next year.

Resources for developers about OpenSource and the Orkut container can be found here: code.google.com

Ning’s co-founder, Marc Andreessen, provided a more in depth look into the new OpenSocial API by way of a screencast demonstrating on how Flixster and iLike, two popular apps on Facebook, exist on Ning.

The screencast shows Flixster and iLike being used on three different and unrelated types of social networks using the Ning platform. The three social networks (tudiabetes, askaninja, dubpages) used in the screencast showed the flexibility of Ning’s platform as well as how the apps blended seamlessly into the different types of niche social networks found on Ning.

An important point coming from the screencast is that the applications won’t go live until the end of the year and possibly early next year. I’m not sure if this is the case for all participating OpenSocial partners, but I’m betting that Orkut will have the applications available before the other partners. Considering Facebook already has over 7000 apps and a six months head start, at this point does it matter which OpenSocial partner will launch the apps first?