David Crow just pointed out on his blog (thanks to Albert Lai) something that I missed earlier - three of the five Facebook fbFund grant winners announced yesterday are Canadian. I had incorrectly reported that only one, Kontagent, had a Canadian connection. The turns out HitGrab and WedSnap also made the cut and collected US$250,000 as well
HitGrab is based in Burlington and call themselves a premier social game company - this fbFund win certainly will help them justify the 'premier' tag. Toronto-based WedSnap provides web applications to the wedding industry. Congrats to all the Canadian winners.
Kontagent is the leading viral analytics platform for social network application developers. The Kontagent platform has been built from the ground... [more]
HitGrab Inc. is a premier social game development company. We build highly engaging social games, consult on social network monetization and... [more]
WedSnap provides web applications to the wedding industry. [more]
Via CNET Webware, today both Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect launched. Both are services that let you sign on to third party sites using your credentials from the respective site. While this feels like a trip back to 1999 when Microsoft launched Passport as a single-sign-on service (what was Passport is today Windows Live ID, and it's not open to third parties anymore). Arguably Microsoft's biggest mistake back then was asking thousands of dollars in licensing fees for those wanting to implement it. In 2008, in Web 2.0, you can't charge for anything, so there's no cost associated with either.
Both Facebook and Google's Connect services go beyond what Microsoft was offering back then. Both allow the third party site to access the user's contacts, in the case of Facebook, a user's privacy settings as propagated as well. Facebook Connect lets those sites then publish items back to the user's news feed. Google Friend Connect ties into OpenSocial, allowing third party sites to make use of social widgets. The root functionality of these two services— single sign-on—is the same, but the implementation and other features offered differentiate them a fair bit.
These systems still run into the argument that many used against Microsoft Passport: a single point of failure, controlled by a corporation. OpenID, an open protocol, decentralized single sign-on system, has come to maturity lately, but uptake and use is slow. Many large services such as Google and Yahoo act as OpenID providers, but much fewer sites actually accept OpenID credentials. Google Friend Connect actually accepts OpenID among others, but to an average user who already has a Google and Facebook account, OpenID is just something they don't understand. For many developers, the closed system where most people already have an account is much more appealing.
Eight years after Microsoft tried to solve the single sign-on problem, it's intriguing that it's taken this long for others to try in their footsteps. That's eight years of making separate accounts for every site you use. We have the technology to solve this, but can we settle on agreement of how?
When the recent Facebook redesign relegated applications to a tab instead of the front user profile, some declared that they were giving up on the Platform. This week Facebook launched it's Application Verification Program. Qualifying applications get a special badge indicating that it has been reviewed by Facebook, increased limits for requests and emails, and increased news feed visibility. For this, an app must pass their Guiding Priciples for Social Applications, and submit $375 for an approval good for one year. The principles are somewhat vague but basically common sense: be meaningful and/or interesting, don't be spammy, buggy, or ugly.
Is this an attempt at monetization beyond advertising? TechCrunch's Arrington calls it a "protection racket" and includes a picture from The Godfather in his post. In my opinion, this is a reasonable move to help solve the problem of distrust in Facebook applications. However, I believe that the distrust could have been largely prevented had Facebook been more conservative with the platform launch.
In Fall 2007, developer enthusiasm for the Facebook Platform was at a fever pitch. At the first Facebook Developer Garage in Vancouver, we had to turn people away after filling the theatre and then some. Enthusiastic developers shared their new creations, and we all revelled in the huge potential of the platform. But by Winter, Facebook app fatigue was setting in hard. Shady developers had exploited any weakness possible to gain users; some tricked users into sending invites out to their entire friends list. Users had become annoyed by spammy apps to the point that they didn't trust them. The reputation of the platform was tarnished hard.
Over this same time period, Apple and Google have launched platforms that have maintained and built good reputation. Third party iPhone apps must pass Apple's approval, and are limited in what aspects of the phone they can access. If they attempt to overstep their bounds, the phone will kill the process. While developers complain about the restrictions and the approval process, iPhone users can rest assured that no app will harm their phone or compromise their security. Google App Engine launched in beta with very tight restrictions on CPU usage, data storage, ability to send outbound email, and number of people accepted into the beta. They've increased the limits over time as the platform has proved stable and secure.
Looking back at the progression of the Facebook Platform, they took a big chance in opening major site functionality to third party developers. Unfortunately it backfired when they didn't act as a strong enough gatekeeper to their service. The platform isn't dead, but developers now need to try extra hard to win over users. The Verification Program is a good step, but if Facebook is serious about the platform, they'll have to prove it stronger.
Vancouver's Brad Touesnard recently launched Vote Swap Canada, allowing voters to "connect with people across Canada who want to minimize vote splitting and increase the effectiveness of their vote." You can essentially trade votes with another Canadian in a different constituency if the party that you support is unlikely to win in your riding but likely to win in another. Each swapper agrees to support a different candidate in hopes of helping their own party in the long run.
The program is different than other vote-swapping sites, argues Touesnard, in that users send personal requests to other voters in different ridings matching their swap criteria, rather than being automatically paired. Potential swappers can accept or deny the resquest, and users can send as many requests as they need to in order to get a willing partner. Touesnard also encourages swappers "to open a dialog with [the other voter] to be on the safe side."
The concept is essentially a good one--significant downfalls of Canada's single-member plurality voting system are that a candidate can win without a majority, and that pre-election poll results can sway voters. Though the swapping is based on the honour system and it will be difficult to really map how effective it is, Vote Swap Canada remains an interesting idea--not at all what political parties likely had in mind when they considered how to use the web to their advantage.
