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May 12, 2008

Today FindMeOn launched SocialMediaStandards.org

I haven't been this excited in years!

( Note: I had a crazy idea to do a performance based presentation @ the web 2.0 meetup -- where I get on stage and act really arrogant like a large Tech firm that forces people to adopt their proprietary standards... then become really nice and talk about Open Processes. That plan did not work out well after a few drinks and a rushed presentation setup. Apologies to all who didn't get the joke ).

For the past few years, I've been running around NYC, SF, BOS and DC -- meeting with agency executives, interactive shops, startups , brands and non-profits.

At first we met over FindMeOn corporate interests - sales, marketing, figuring out how we can work together. As time progressed and meetings turned into friends catching up, I began to realize that our clients and friends were facing the same issues we did: complete and utter chaos when it comes to the way Social Media campaigns are implemented.

From tech companies to advertising firms, and all the shops in between, we were all having the same problems - integrating projects with one another, and eventually with the large networks.

At FindMeOn , we finally decided to do something about this.

Over the past few weeks, I've been piecing together a coalition of Startups, Agencies, Non-Profits and Brands - the people who build and finance Social Media Campaigns, into a new industry group.

We're coming together under a single banner - and hoping others join us - to fix the industry. We're forming the Social Media Standards organization.

Today we live in an age where everyone wants to have a social media campaign - and everyone does. Everyone also has an Open Standard and a Platform API -- even we were one of the earlier people to jump on the trend launching the findmeon protocol and Open Social Network systems in 2006.

Being open is neat, but when everyone has an OpenStandard and API -- which is designed to advance proprietary systems -- being open is pretty much worthless.

In the past week we've seen a deluge of new open standards: MySpace Google Facebook all decided that they'd have the next new hot thing, and tried to outdo themselves. Good for them - but for everyone else, this is nothing short of a nightmare being formed right before our eyes. The fact that these systems are 'Open' does nothing for the fact that they are independent and multiples of one another.

Ever since Facebook's API started to gain traction, the top tech firms have gotten into a pissing match with one another -- each one trying to outdo the others. Every few months, a company announces a brand new "OPEN!" product that not only outdoes their competitors, and the last "open" product they released.

These groups *hate* being open: remember that only one year ago, the same social networks that are embracing DataPortability.org were blocking widgets, disabling accounts, and claiming ownership of user data and experience. To these interests, being "Open" doesn't mean empowering a user -- it means losing control.

Networks shouldn't be demonized though: they want - and deserve - credit for the added value they bring to user generated data. While I believe in Open Source, Open Standards, and that users own their content -- there is definite added value from these networks that undoubtedly belongs to the networks, and networks should be credited for: the metrics and analysis they offer, the modes of communication, the simple fact of friendship context - how a MySpace friendship is inherently different than a Facebook friendship (a notion that FindMeOn.com has been yelping about for years). So social networks want - and deserve - some amounts of control in these interactions.

What Social Networks don't deserve, is to be the only voice in these interactions. Social Media is, at it's essence, social -- involving people and communities. Social Networks actors like users and third party networks/applications are an integral portion of the social dialogue -- and voices that must be heard.

At Social Media Standards, we're setting some goals to bring order to the chaos of Social Media. We're hoping to better represent users and the third party interests in what has become an 'open platforms' and 'open apis' war.

We're not doing this as "FindMeOn" or any one company -- we're doing this as a coalition of companies that are defining the standards *together*.

We're also hoping to create a shared library of code that people can use as the building blocks for social media campaigns. We hope that with a common set of API calls / class structures / database tables, we'll be able to migrate our applications across networks faster when needed -- and be able to better create integration points between our apps.

We're also hoping to build off of each other's knowledge, experience, and expertise.

Our immediate goals are the following:

- Creating a new set of legal standards and agreements - in the vein of understanding and clarity as Creative Commons has introduced - for Social Media website usage.

- Defining a new set of standards for Application Design, Development and Deployment - along with integration points.

- Create new Open Source libraries and frameworks to implement Social Media campaigns across platforms. Support DataPortability.org projects, and create integration points + inter-application protocols that work for us.

- Create new Open Standards for applications to interact with one another. This isn't a top-down approach of one company saying "This is how things will be!" -- this is a crowdsourced approach of finding consensus between the social media application producers.

Standards are only as good as the people who write them, and only as useful as the number of people who use them. We've been recruiting some of the top talent across industries over the past few weeks - and hope to have the full support of the Advertising and Agency worlds by years end. Over the next few weeks, you can expect to see some large names add themselves to the Social Media Standards project - and we hope to see many small names add themselves too.

From PHP and Python to Rails and .NET - we hope to have every platform covered with reference implementations and building blocks -- so Social Media Standards can be quickly implemented, and people can redeploy their projects across platforms when needed.

Posted by Jonathan at May 12, 2008 11:10 PM

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