Social Network Platform Wars

A few months ago, I was raving about the power of the Facebook platform and how churches can take advantage of it.   Then Google one-upped Facebook with OpenSocial, and I was raving about the potential of the OpenSocial platform for churches.  Now, Facebook is battling OpenSocial by licensing their platform to other social networks.

Bebo is the first to adopt the Facebook platform, which just launched today.  And we can expect others to follow suit.  What this means is that any app written for the Facebook platform can also be launched by the 3rd party developer on Bebo and other social networks.

If you start connecting the dots, you could argue that the power may no longer be in the hands of the Facebooks, Myspaces, and Bebo's of the world.  The future influence may be shifting to startups like RockYou, Slide, and iLike that plunder the spoils of these platform wars.  These widget companies have more reach, and access to a much larger audience than any one of these social networks. 

And consumers will use these widget sites as hubs to manage their online identity (data, music, photos, slideshows, etc) and plug into whatever social network is popular that year.  Afterall it was Friendster in '03-'04, Myspace in '05-'06, and Facebook in '07-'08.  Then, hopefully with data portability, widget users on one social network can connect with the same widget users on a different social network.

As co-founder of MyChurch.org, a part of our vision has been to enable church communities to outreach outside the (digital) walls of their own community.  Admittedly, it's hard to see how a "walled garden" site like MyChurch will play a part in this digital outreach.  But with data portability becoming inevitable, and social network platforms becoming ubiquitous, we're slowly getting a little closer.  Facebook applications like "My Church" are just the tip of the iceberg.

-- Joe Suh

ps. An interview with Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, will be on 60 Minutes this Sunday.

Comments

[Greg Atkinson]

I agree - this is just "the tip of the iceberg".