On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 9:13 PM, Ayende Rahien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > How many service providers do you expect to have? It depends on the service. Aggregation is hard. Thus, I wouldn't expect there to be a great many aggregators at any one time since aggregation is hard -- especially if the aggregators do things like offer real-time "tracking" services (prospective search). But, even if there aren't very many, we've learned from blogging and the web that aggregators are very important to the health of the overall system. Ideally, there would always be more than one provider of any particular service to ensure competition and thus ensure pressure to innovate by offering improved or new capabilities. However, if we don't establish the protocols to enable aggregation of social networking content, we're going to find that the only service providers that have a chance to enter the market will be those that have special relationships to existing major social networks -- for instance, like the relationship between Summize and Twitter. The result, of course, will be that it becomes impossible to compete with existing services by innovating. We'll have a lock-in that will not serve the community's interests.
It should be recognized that the "advertisement" mechanism has utility for many kinds of publish/subscribe service -- whether or not they are specifically related to social networking. Thus, the examples I gave in an earlier note of "News Feeds", "Stock Market Quotes", "sports results," "weather reports", etc.. It is best, I think, if we try to have social networking systems rely on technologies that are generally useful. We should avoid unnecessary specialization so that the Social Networking space can benefit from innovation and ideas that come from other realms. bob wyman
