Comments for

Identity Wars: Google & Yahoo! Bow to Facebook & Twitter

2009-12-03T04:18:28Z

Yahoo! announced this morning that it is adding Facebook Connect across many of its properties. This afternoon Google Friend Connect announced the inclusion of Twitter as a top-level log-in option. These moves will be convenient for users, but may not be good for the future of the web.

People have always said that Google does what's good for the web, because what's good for the web is good for Google. In this case I'm worried that the Royalty of the web's last generation has crowned these two leading social networks as the Royalty of the current generation in a deal that offers traffic and money but that could suffocate the most creative developments of the open, distributed web. That could be called the web's next generation.

]]> The Importance of Identity

Identity is a very important matter online, particularly as everything becomes more social. Online identity is your address book, it's your wallet, it's your reputation and it could become a lot more. Increasingly, you take that Identity from site to site, leveraging on the next site what you did on the last one. If a particular company provides that Identity for you, it sets the rules, regulations, "interest rates" (eg. use of your info for advertising) and determines things like what parts of your identity you can use on different sites and what parts you can't.

Facebook and Twitter are becoming big Identity providers. Google and Yahoo! have wanted to be leading Identity providers themselves but today cried Uncle with a big nod to the supremacy of the two leading social networks. At this point they have an interest in doing so, because they want you to share what you do on Yahoo and Google sites with your big link-clicking network of friends on Facebook and Twitter. Google didn't add Facebook Connect, just Twitter, because Facebook is now Google's leading challenger.

The Rest of the Identity World

But there are far more parties in the world of Identity than Twitter and Facebook. The Internet works because it is decentralized and there are scores of small companies, services and developers building out Identity infrastructures that are decentralized as well. Infrastructures that leverage the network-effect of the decentralized internet to provide the benefits of a large group, but are independent and interoperable in order to provide the benefits of personal freedom and control that can come from owning your own Identity.

Those small players, people working on things like OpenID, ActivityStreams, the distributed social graph and other components of distributed, independent and interoperable social networking - those players may have been sold down the river by today's deals between Yahoo and Google and Facebook and Twitter.

How could that be? After all, the OpenID logo appears on the login screen for Google Friend Connect and Yahoo! has been a big supporter of OpenID. I would argue that by putting the best known brands, with the easiest log-in experiences, at the very front of the parade - Google and Yahoo have further marginalized the distributed web. The PR email to journalists about the announcement was even titled "Google Friend Connect and Twitter Get Cozy Together."

The Consequences of Today's Deals

By choosing to favor branded log-ins and making standards-based systems an afterthought, websites using these systems are disincentivized to leverage the innovations that come from the open standards community and big Identity brands stay in control. Those websites might be Google and Yahoo! or they might be other big sites with all the more reason to favor incumbent leaders in Identity because of the support Google and Yahoo! have given them.

People have talked about combining OpenID and Friend of a Friend data for spam control on blogs. "We'll just require Facebook log-in, thanks," I can imagine big websites saying. People are working on implementing cross-network standards for user activity data so sites can understand the activity feeds of other social networks and users of small, innovative sites can still communicate with their friends on other, larger sites. That means people will use small innovative sites and give them the support to grow. "Most people just use Facebook or Twitter," I can imagine big websites saying. People have talked about using things like content category tags and bookmarks to build cross-site user Attention Profiles. "We'll just look at their Facebook profiles," I can imagine big websites saying.

A distributed social web, communicating through interoperable, standards-based language, offers as much opportunity for innovation as a common tongue does for poetry, universally visible pigments do for art or cash money and free time do for a self-determined afternoon. Your clicks, your contacts, your measurable behavior and content online are like fuel to burn, cash to spend. You'll either be able to spend that resource on things like recommendations, privileges, trust, recognition, greater efficiency and unforeseeable innovation - or those resources will be handed directly and exclusively to advertisers for the benefit of those who broker your Identity.

The identity and activity payloads that come with most systems of identity don't seem to be of much interest to sites leveraging Facebook and Twitter as primary identity providers today, though. It's hard to think about anything else when all that potential traffic from enabling broadcast of your content is dangling in front of you.

"All you little sites are interested in making it easy to do cross-site photo identification/ comment re-aggregation / book recommendation based on charecteristics of multiple social networking profiles (etc.)?" Big Website might say, "Well, Facebook and Twitter don't do that and they are good enough for us. We're excited about people broadcasting links to our site out to their Twitter and Facebook friends. That's enough for us. Isn't that innovative?"

This may be more cynicism than is warranted, but I don't think so. When dealing with hundreds of millions of peoples' identities, the future of human communication and trillions of dollars - it's probably good to lean a little toward cynicism when considering collaboration with incumbent industry leaders.

I appreciate the ease of Facebook and Twitter login around the web as much as anyone, but every big Identity login action I take feels like an economic transaction where the change and the interest slip through my fingers and land in the pockets of Facebook and Twitter.

Wouldn't it have been better for the web to say "no, we will not simply take the easy solutions when it comes to Identity, in exchange for traffic and money. We will instead look for ways to make it easier for users of any Identity provider to engage with our websites."

The short-term trade of giving more control to two big social networks, in exchange for traffic and ad money, may not serve anyone well in the long run.

Comment from Moncler Jackets on 2011-01-06

2011-01-06T10:27:25Z

Not that anyone pays attention to the question, or has even noticed the changed question.

Comment from Philos Mudis on 2010-01-15

2010-01-15T17:23:24Z

In the world before...and even in the world today competition, in good faith, is what makes a service more robust. History changes...things change and that's what happens in the top companies too.

Comment from Francesco on 2009-12-06

2009-12-06T13:45:20Z

Great post, Marshall.

Do you know any good initiative currently focused in privacy management online?

Thanks

Comment from Sherrie on 2009-12-05

2009-12-06T03:43:12Z

It is frustrating as all get out trying to get onto facebook anymore. What is going on...

Comment from shane on 2009-12-05

2009-12-05T08:21:21Z

just trying to get logged into your facebook acct, is really beginning to suck

Comment from James on 2009-12-04

2009-12-04T08:59:29Z

All those years of complaining about trolls, now that we have a system that at least gives some user accountability... not that it will solve trolls, just pointing out a benefit to all of this.

I for one love that I can get all my major services under one login. OpenID is nice, but there is no benefit to me. By using Facebook, Google or Twitter as a login it ties to an active account that I use for something more than just identifying myself to sites.

Arguing that this will stifle innovation is a bit pedantic. When Google bought Writely, it essentially killed any other real competition for an online Office suite. But in return we got a rock-solid online option in this field. You might as well complain that Facebook's sheer size is killing all other social networking sites (which it is - even the mighty MySpace is slipping and Twitter is not a SN in the traditional sense). But we get a certain level of functional conformity, necessary for a large-scale product. If it wasn't for PHP and overwhelming support for Linux servers we wouldn't have easy-to-install blogs like Wordpress - also a big player that arguably crushes the chances for most third-party blog upstarts.

It is sad that this will damage OpenID, but perhaps that service's approach is perhaps incompatible with the masses.

Internet startups cannot live off geeks alone. Consumes, Amalgamates, Conforms, Atrophies: that's the path of any web giant.

Comment from Max Beatty on 2009-12-03

2009-12-04T03:45:46Z

No one has mentioned that Facebook not only supports OpenID but is on their board as well. Thought provoking article nonetheless.

Comment from Cherry Casinos on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T20:09:28Z

Like it or not. Both facebook and twitter are popular with everyone. The twitter login id is so much better and easier than that ugly google friend connect widget.

Comment from sstrader.myopenid.com on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T20:07:16Z

Agree that OpenID needs to win this. With it's push for standards, I'm surprised that Google (business decision or no) doesn't attempt to emphasize it.

"When dealing with hundreds of millions of peoples' identities, the future of human communication and trillions of dollars..."

Absolutely.

In the same way that HTML standards are becoming more important and promote greater advances in web browsers and web sites, an identity standard would promote better security across the web. Commonality eliminates the inefficiency of needless differences.

And I have to agree: RWW has a responsibility to push such open standards.

Comment from sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T20:05:10Z

if i had to pick one sentence that stands out to me in this article... "it's probably good to lean a little toward cynicism when considering collaboration with incumbent industry leaders."

Comment from Lee on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T19:58:09Z

I have the Selective Twitter app for a reason, and it is not to connect my Twitter account to my Facebook account. I have three Facebook identities (two for Webcomic, one for me) and seven Twitter identities (two are mine - one weird, one professional; five are my webcomic characters) and I don't want any of them to be any more interconnected than that little #fb hash tag I tack onto certain Tweets.

Comment from Jason Dojc on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T19:28:39Z

I think there's a lot of confusion as to what you're sharing with the site administrators or what you're making public when you sign in with certain IDs. That's why I'm reticent about signing in with Facebook connect but fine with signing in with twitter (since that stuff is meant to be public). The only thing is, I'd love to be able to customize the tweet that ends up getting generated just because I signed in with twitter. Right now all I can do is share on twitter but with no control of what the tweet says.

Comment from Tom Turnbull on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T18:52:24Z

Great post. Unfortunately, simple beats perfect every time.

Comment from Ryan on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T18:45:13Z

As a member of the Identity community, I assessed the various identity technologies for SetJam when we started development in June and went with FB Connect. I felt that they were best positioned to serve as the provider of "real" identities.

Sadly, we'll almost certainly have to remove FB Connect from SetJam. The problem is two-fold:

1. People's FB identity is their "personal" identity. They are loath to give it up (even though we don't do anything with it except authenticate).

2. FB has taken ZERO initiative to educate their users about this. How about a statement from FB to all their users that explains that they're entering this business for real and that their user's should TRUST sites that use FB Connect?

Comment from neteffect.wordpress.com on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T16:28:12Z

Great post Marshall. I agree with your basic premise. But I don't these actions will lead to long term harm in the identity space. Twitter and Facebook are imperfect at facilitating open identity because doing so isn't well aligned with their core missions. These are communication platforms. Consumers will flock to the services that give them real control and value, because as this space matures, nothing will be more important that owning and managing our IDs. Fact is, we don't have a real identity provider today. Today's ID providers are really just "profile providers", most of which also enable social content or communication. I use my WordPress ID for logging in to site. It WordPress really a provider of identity? Of course not. Identity, in the way you describe it, doesn't exist online in a meaningful way. Buying a domain and creating an ID hub is not a mass consumer activity, and will not create network effects. Facebook, Twitter, Google and Yahoo all see the enormous advantages the leading ID providers will gain. But their actions also prove that they are not properly wired as organizations to seize this opportunity themselves. The smaller organization you mention, including OpenID, haven't displayed an ability to produce mass-consumer value propositions, and for that reason they are important as contributors to our incremental advancements toward true open identity, but unless they can rise to the occasion and start thinking like mass-consumer companies, they won't succeed in mass consumer value creation, and for that reason they won't succeed. Identity is too important. It's the biggest business opportunity we have as a people today, and it's still completely unclaimed. It won't remain unclaimed forever, and the companies that emerge as leaders will likely have "open-identity" baked into their DNAs.

Comment from Mussie Shore on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T16:26:37Z

Hi Marshall,

I agree that the web is aching for a neutral open way for folks to sign in to sites. A way that is easy and recognizable.

That said, Google Friend Connect is primarily interested in the quality of features that allow site owners and their visitors to connect more fully after they have signed in. This is more important to us than how any particular user signs in. We want site owners to be able to deploy features, such as newsletters, polls, recommendations, reviews, sharing, profile embellishment, content personalization, with little or no coding ability.

We will continue to add open sign-in and sharing mechanisms to Friend Connect without preference to a particular standard, as they become available. By "open" we mean an API that works, and terms of service that permit inclusion.

And, for practical purposes we will continue to tune the user interface (button positions, size, etc.) to reduce the bounce rate of those attempting to sign-in and to promote broad distributed sharing to multiple endpoints.

We feel a open social web is best served by having as many people signed in, participating, regardless of what key they happened to use to get through the front door.

Mussie Shore
Product Manager, Google Friend Connect

Comment from LANjackal on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T16:25:55Z

Translation of previous comment: inconveniencing users for the sake of "openness" is a poor idea for *business*, which is what Google and Yahoo are.

Comment from LANjackal on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T16:24:47Z

Stop whining. The fact is that OpenID and other "standards-based" services are a total PITA to use. Twitter and Facebook were actually smart enough to make signing in a one-click process. Because of their social nature, users are almost always logged in to Facebook and Twitter anyway, thus making the login process at other sites nearly instant. The same can't and never will be said about OpenID or others like it.

Don't be worried though, it's not the end of the world. Back in the early 2000s everyone had an AIM account, remember?

Comment from ebarcell.myopenid.com on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T14:24:53Z

I completely agree that online identity is far too crucial an element of the future of our lives to be controlled by a private interest.

i believe that, if the status quo remains, we will see FB emerging as the standard. For two reasons: first, not everyone needs or is interested in a twitter account. second, although as of now you still can't *be* a business on FB (you need be an individual that creates a page for your business), this will likely change. The one advantage twitter has in the ID space, allowing any type of entity to have a login, would then be moot.

The choice of a site owner on which ID system to allow is completely dependent on network effect. Once every site owner is using FB as ID, it will be very hard to change that. You might say that FB overtook myspace - but keep in mind that we are only now emerging from the pre-history of the social web. As the medium matures, change become less frequent and consolidation occurs. Social networks are not browsers (Firefox taking over IE) or search engines (Y! losing to Google) - their utility is dependent on network effect, and FB is reaching the tipping point (at least in the western world)

so what can we do? there should be an organized effort (for example a PR campaign) to educate on the use of online identity and promote open initiatives such as openID. These effort needs funding (for example EFF) and a voice (for example lobbying). Otherwise they will get run over by the interests of a board of directors.

Comment from tomikk on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T13:49:57Z

Am I the only one who finds all those sign-in options less useful and more confusing than username/password combo? How the hell can I remember where I have signed using this service, where using that service and where using password? I find my email and password still best options to sign up and in to web services. Manage identities though browser - this is way to go: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/identity-in-the-browser-firefox/.
T.

Comment from John on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T13:37:29Z

Just for the record, Twitter has declared itself an information network rather than a social network. Hence the question has been changed from "What are you doing?" to "What's happening?"

Not that anyone pays attention to the question, or has even noticed the changed question.

Thought you'd want this information.

Comment from Farshid on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T12:57:08Z

Well, they really needed them. They both need such services to support them and get supported. That was a good news for today.

Comment from Nigatu on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T12:04:04Z

Hi!!!!

Comment from Aaron on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T11:11:39Z

This is called foresight and could not be more poignant.
I am increasingly amazed at the "always" and "nevers" that I see in comment threads, as well as the shortsightedness of our popularity loving nature.

Here is a real practical question....
If identity is going to become a commodity, would you rather have a decentralized web standard overseen by the community as a whole that allows you to manage your identity, or do you want identity decisions left up to Zuckerbergs benevolence, or Evan William's generocity?
We so exalt success in this country that we are willing to hand our future freedoms over to millionaires with shiny proprietary smiles.

For signing in an commenting, I dont mind using twitter. But in the long run, as our online lives become an indexable digital stream, I am quite sure that I do not want to have my ability to leverage my online identity controlled by Facebooks ever changing "policies" or a microblogging profit model.

Comment from ropes on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T10:13:58Z

Important post on need for open identity - lest innovation of the social web is handcuffed by big brands. Identity Wars.

Comment from Tim on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T10:03:59Z

Well done. We do need to support more innovation in the social networking sphere.

Comment from Joe Dawson on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T09:11:03Z

I rate the usage of Facebook Connect and Twitter OAuth, especially the ability to publish activity back to those profiles!

Comment from Albert Willis on 2009-12-03

2009-12-03T08:27:00Z

It's not that complicated, at least as far as Google Friend Connect goes: Twitter is part of the infrastructure of the social web. A Twitter username + OAuth gives site developers a quick and easy way to login to a brand new site and bring enough other stuff (the avatar and the bio) with them.

Yes, this sounds a lot like how OpenID works, which I use whenever I can. And who knows, Twitter might become a relaying party in the future and all of our Twitter URLs will also function as OpenIDs.

It's a good move by Google; lets see where it leads.

Comment from Clyde Smith on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T07:22:53Z

"This may be more cynicism than is warranted, but I don't think so. When dealing with hundreds of millions of peoples' identities, the future of human communication and trillions of dollars - it's probably good to lean a little toward cynicism when considering collaboration with incumbent industry leaders."

That's not cynicism. It's rational analysis!

Comment from BWI on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T06:11:13Z

Did someone from Google say they didn't add Facebook because they are competing with them? I don't really see the reasoning in that one.

Why would they allow their top two competitors to team up this way, and not get in on that action. I can't imagine Google not supporting Facebook for long...unless they got some deal with Twitter that they are not bragging about.

Comment from Rich Weaver on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T04:51:39Z

Socio-economics is the study of the relationship between economic activity and social life.

Sign in information could be sold to marketers who than use it as priming to sell you goods you didn't even know you needed(wanted?). A form of Neuromarketing.

Think about how much personal information you post about yourself, family, friends. Effectively you've done all the market research for the marketer(s) yourself.

You've just become the perfect target audience for goods or worse still, ideals. The poster "OBEY" comes to mind.

Great article by the way.

Comment from Marshall Clark on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T04:09:43Z

Identity and the social graph data that comes with it will be key to the next generation of social search algorithms.

PageRank was in many ways the first social algorithm (links as social annotation) but it's now bordering on obsolescence.

Google needs access to deep social graph data to build the next generation of search. While I'm sure Twitter and Facebook are still keeping their graph data close to their chests, this seems like it could be the first step in a deeper data partnership. Hope I'm wrong, I agree we'd all be better off with open ID standards.

Comment from Mal on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T03:24:28Z

Great post Marshall.

Comment from Brad on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T03:22:03Z

Reminds me of Dick Hardt's Identity 2.0 presentation from OSCON 2005, worth a watch for anyone interested in this article.

Comment from vitamine k on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T03:07:32Z

What makes you think that any of this was “silly”? I think that what Google did was VERY clever indeed!

Comment from fjpoblam on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T03:03:28Z

So: if you can use GOOG to logon to FB, and FB to logon to YHOO, then can you use GOOG to logon to YHOO?

Comment from Jason on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T02:41:53Z

I don't think it is a big deal really. Google is using the technologies that are the best "right now" to make things easier and better. Moore's Law states that every 2 years the amount of transistors able to be placed on a circuit board will double. This has been a pretty steady trend in how computers are built, and similarly website properties also. Let's wait a few years and see who is the next big thing before jumping on Google for this decision.

Comment from drgath.myopenid.com on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T02:24:11Z

The reality is .001% of web users understand what OpenID, and that will never change. Facebook Connect and Twitter Connect are dead simple and people understand it. Someone has to eventually own identity, it's not a perfect world.

If there was only one company that both Google & Yahoo partnered with, then I'd be worried. But we have two, strong competitors, which is obviously a good thing. It's either two companies own identity & battle it out, or no one owns it and we're stuck with signing in with obscure OpenID URLs or 20 service provider icons that average joe can't figure out.

Good perspective though. I sympathize with your concerns, but I think it's a logical step and one that will improve the content generation experience for everyone on the web.

Comment from Marshall Kirkpatrick on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T02:00:11Z

Mona, I can respect the influence Facebook has had on the mainstream for sure. However, my contention here is that the innovation that could be built on top of a large number of us owning our own data independently will be stifled by re-enforcing the dominance of incumbent Identity market leaders with far more interest in monetization than innovation.

Comment from Mona on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T01:51:04Z

Really, Marshall? REALLY? Distributed data and OAuth are the best things to happen to the web. Facebook encouraged and pushed along transparency; just look at the cultural shift. There are far less trolls, more respectful exchanges, and most significantly adoption at a mass level.

Owning our own data / identities are up to us, the users. We choose what to and what not to share across respective services. If content is the main issue, register your own domain, store the data on your own servers. For other or smaller companies i.e. start-ups, that's what APIs are for.

Mass adoption FTW.

Comment from Marshall Kirkpatrick on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T01:46:43Z

Erik, I'd say "I just work here" but that's not 100% true. :) Snarky comments like yours do help us evaluate our design priorities, though.

Comment from erik.swanson.name on 2009-12-02

2009-12-03T01:41:19Z

You cry out against Google giving priority to Facebook and Twitter, and I agree that putting UX too far ahead of openness is a bad thing.

However, when signing in to post this comment, the first two options are Facebook and Twitter, with OpenID being the last option not relegated as "other." Care to practice what you preach?