Social Networking Wars 2011: Everyone Cutting Off Everyone Else

from the and-who-loses? dept

It seems that, with the launch of Google+, we may have seen the kickoff of the great social networking war of 2011 -- with the various services trying to hold back and block data.

First off, over the weekend, some folks noticed that Google's real-time search suddenly went dead. At first people thought it was just an error, but it later came out that it was due to the fact that Google's deal with Twitter, wherein Twitter provided Google with a real-time firehose of Twitter data, had ended and had not been renewed. Neither side seems to be explaining much. Both gave vague statements. First Twitter (oddly, many press sources are saying the following statement is from Google, but it's not):
Since October 2009, Twitter has provided Google with the stream of public tweets for incorporation into their real-time search product and other uses. That agreement has now expired. We continue to provide this type of access to Microsoft, Yahoo!, NTT Docomo, Yahoo! Japan and dozens of other smaller developers. And, we work with Google in many other ways.
Then Google's first statement:
Twitter has been a valuable partner for nearly two years, and we remain open to exploring other collaborations in the future.
And then a further statement:
Since October of 2009, we have had an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results through a special feed, and that agreement expired on July 2.

While we will not have access to this special feed from Twitter, information on Twitter that’s publicly available to our crawlers will still be searchable and discoverable on Google.
Of course, Google had many other sources in realtime search... and they're all wiped out too. Google has suggested that it will be relaunching it... but with Google+ as the central piece:
Our vision is to have google.com/realtime include Google+ information along with other realtime data from a variety of sources.
In other words, this looks like a bit of a standoff between two social networks.

And that's not the only one. Another report has come out saying that Facebook is actively blocking methods that let you export your Facebook social graph into Google+. This might not be a huge deal (frankly, I don't want to export my Facebook setup to Google+), but it does suggest another standoff.

None of this is a huge surprise, but it does highlight yet another problem of relying on any proprietary, centralized services. They can change things around, block off data, and limit what people can do. A truly open, distributed solution wouldn't even be able to cut off anyone else or require special deals for data feeds. The real tragedy is that in blocking off access to data in both of these cases, everyone loses by having fewer options and less ability to make use of data. Who knows who's at fault in the first one (or perhaps it's both parties), but all these skirmishes may also call more attention to Google's market power. If it comes out that Google was the one who decided not to re-up, and that it's planning to use Google+ instead of Twitter, you can see how the "Google is a monopoly!" brigade will go nuts.
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Filed Under: data, export, google plus, import, realtime search, social networks
Companies: facebook, google, twitter


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  • icon
    fogbugzd (profile), 5 Jul 2011 @ 2:46pm

    Facebook cutting off data export could play into Google+ marketing. One of the points of Google+ is that your data is yours and that you may export it at any time. Facebook is just demonstrating why that is important.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Jul 2011 @ 2:49pm

    Google has every right not to put competing data on its search engines. There should be nothing illegal about it. If Microsoft (which has an equally large monopoly on operating systems) or Time Warner Cable (a company that benefits from government established monopolies) or AT&T (a company with little competition in the LAN Line Business) or just about any other company did something similar, even within their specific industry that they practically have a monopoly on, law enforcement wouldn't blink an eye. But when Google does it ...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 5 Jul 2011 @ 2:53pm

      Re:

      What the hell are you talking about? Google doesn't have access to something, that makes them in violation of antitrust laws? How the hell does that work?

      I think it's time for your meds.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 5 Jul 2011 @ 3:38pm

        Re: Re:

        "Google doesn't have access to something, that makes them in violation of antitrust laws?"

        What? Where did I say that?


        "I think it's time for your meds."

        I think it's time for you to improve your reading comprehension abilities.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        The eejit (profile), 5 Jul 2011 @ 11:34pm

        Re: Re:

        I think you missed the point; that whenever Google's name comes up, there's always someone who hates.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Mike42 (profile), 5 Jul 2011 @ 2:57pm

      Re:

      All of those companies have already been investigated, and probably will be again. Success breeds regulation.

      However, I hope Microsoft is severely sanctioned for it's non-competitive practice of pushing license agreements on every manufacturer who uses Android, while being unwilling to tell what patents are being "infringed". This is extremely unethical, regardless of it's legality.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 5 Jul 2011 @ 5:22pm

      Re: Google has every right not to put competing data on its search engines.

      A company has every right to make its product less attractive to customers.

      But that’s not the smart way to stay in business.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 5 Jul 2011 @ 8:43pm

        Re: Re: Google has every right not to put competing data on its search engines.

        Agreed. If Twitter et al want to make their product less attractive to customers by not allowing Google and others to freely reference their site, that's the fault of Twitter et al.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Chris Rhodes (profile), 5 Jul 2011 @ 2:52pm

    Key Point

    A truly open, distributed solution wouldn't even be able to cut off anyone

    Reminds me of a talk by the guy behind the Freedom Box, where he described the future of social networking as being away from systems that have you give your personal data to central authorities like Facebook and Google+, but where each individual runs software on their own machine (such as the Freedom Box) that only distributes their data as they see fit.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    sehlat (profile), 5 Jul 2011 @ 2:53pm

    The Business of Business

    The business of business (and government, which is merely a business with legal access to force and violence), is owning your customers and, to the maximum extent possible, sucking them dry at the lowest possible cost.

    If you think otherwise, read history.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Marcus Carab (profile), 5 Jul 2011 @ 3:37pm

      Re: The Business of Business

      I'm not so sure about the "sucking them dry" part. The smartest businesses seem to be the ones that avoid sucking their customers dry, so that they can keep them around indefinitely.

      In any case, the same thing doesn't really apply to social networks, because the users are not really the customers. The customers are the advertisers, so the goal is to increase the size and demographic desirability of your user base so you can charge higher ad rates. That's what makes them panic and try to block off competitors for fear of a mass exodus. But in reality, they would probably be smarter to open everything up and try to court users with features and experience, instead of trying to trap them, which is a short-term solution at best.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 5 Jul 2011 @ 4:38pm

        Re: Re: The Business of Business

        I agree that advertisers are the customers, and maybe currently their biggest customer. However, their biggest customer will and should be the USG.

        All of that info on you and your friends will be put to good use... keeping us safe from the enemy. It will also be helpful to send out public service announcements, so that everyone will know what to do and how to act.

        How about automatically tagging photos? Well here you go...

        http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-smartphone-app-automatically-tags-photos.html

        Hopefully we will soon be able to know exactly where everyone is and was at all times. A crime free utopia if you ask me.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      DannyB (profile), 6 Jul 2011 @ 6:24am

      Re: The Business of Business

      You can fleece the sheep as often as you want. You can only skin them once.

      The cow can give you milk many times. It can only give you beef once.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Eric Goldman (profile), 5 Jul 2011 @ 2:56pm

    I'm pretty sure Google was paying Twitter for access to the real-time feed, so my guess is that Google wanted to reduce or eliminate its payments and Twitter would rather get paid. One other example to note is how Facebook routinely blocks j.mp links as "spammy." Eric.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    garm (profile), 5 Jul 2011 @ 3:38pm

    This is why I like open source software.

    We need to arrive at a place where everyone can improve any kind of software and where no one can using their monopoly-power to block what is possible.

    It's depressing to think that what we do with software is limited not by our imagination but by what we are allowed to.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jim L, 5 Jul 2011 @ 5:53pm

    Dispora

    There will be other sites that do it right if people really care - https://joindiaspora.com/

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    FBFan, 5 Jul 2011 @ 8:18pm

    Another real-time search feed

    Facebook Spectrum - http://www.facebookspectrum.com - but ony limited to Facebook posts.. Not an exact replacement but still worth a try..

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    jenningsthecat (profile), 6 Jul 2011 @ 6:09am

    Social Notworking!

    'nuff said.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2011 @ 10:40am

    cant we all just network socially together?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    lrobbo (profile), 10 Jun 2012 @ 8:14am

    That'd be a resounding no I believe!

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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