Comments on: Will OpenSocial help Google reorganize into the first Galactic Empire?

By: Google OpenSocial Reorganize Into First Galactic Empire at memoirs on a rainy day

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:46:04 +0000

[...] Will Google’s OpenSocial reorganize humanity into the First Galactic Empire? These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 02:50:57 +0000

Ah – so Google, those great promoters of “openness,” are at it again. That they’re attempting to make it sound like philanthropy worries me all the more. I especially love this line, taken from a Wired report allegedly written by actual writers, but which is undoubtedly lifted straight from a Google release: “It is the first step toward putting you back in control of your online relationships.”

Ummm, yeah, that’s what Google is known for – putting YOU in control.

I guess at a glance OpenSocial seems like it might be a good idea. If your social net is like mine you have all kinds of relationships strewn across a number of platforms (in my case, Facebook, Ning, MySpace, LinkedIn, LiveJournal and LastFM), and that kind of fragmentation doesn’t make for maximum networking efficiency (nor is it terribly convenient moving back and forth from one to another).

But convenience comes at a price, and you really need to ask yourself how much you trust Google. If you think this is really about “putting you back in control of your online relationships,” you probably haven’t read your terms of service lately, huh?

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 19:39:38 +0000

Yeah, there’s a third way. Pay AND lose your privacy. My guess is this is the direction Google is aiming.

By: Martin

Martin — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 19:28:01 +0000

Don’t break something patting yourself on the back there, Gavin–especially because many people are voicing the same concerns I did and do.

Advertising bothers me less than direct spying on my activities, i.e. the NSA wiretaps. I can always choose to ignore or block an ad, but I recognize that not everyone is as resistant to these things as I am. Most people do not say or do anything that would give them cause to be afraid of a wiretap, but does that mean the wiretap is all right? No, of course not. And advertising is the same way.

A business has every right to want to profit from a service it provides. I’m generally more comfortable paying a flat fee for a service than being subjected to the ever-more-insidious forms of advertising designed to generate revenue.

By: Will OpenSocial help Google reorganize into the first Galactic Empire?

Will OpenSocial help Google reorganize into the first Galactic Empire? — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 18:47:05 +0000

[...] DJ: Unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptNoticeably absent from the alliance supporting OpenSocial were the two 800-pound gorillas of the social networking world, MySpace and Facebookâ€¦well, at least for a day or so. It was barely 24 hours later that MySpace announced it would … [...]

By: whythawk

whythawk — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 18:37:04 +0000

Very prescient, I thought. Especially since I was totally against the walled garden and very sure that the future lies with some form of interoperability.

However, these be the choices:
i) Free, but you sacrifice your privacy as Google mines your activity to sell you stuff
ii) Paid, but you keep your privacy

And, er, I suppose the “third way” would be something in between?

As you say, everything depends on how private you want to keep your life. And whether your life has sufficient meaning to be worth keeping private