Well, I didn’t plan for this blog to start out with 2 posts on social networking, but it appears as I was writing my first post Yahoo! were penning a press release saying they are joining Open Social and with Google and MySpace are forming the non-profit Open Social Foundation – an organisation to ensure that Open Social doesn’t remain influenced by a single company.
I would suggest that the move by Yahoo! has more to do with annoying Microsoft who recently made a bid for the company of $45 billon (only to have it rejected as undervaluing Yahoo!, but that is another post all in itself!) than anything else. However, it now means that the only two social networks of any significance not signed up to Open Social are Windows Live and Facebook.
If nothing else, it certainly seems that all the big internet players are squaring up around this one issue. I just hope the result is better, more integrated services with users privacy protected. Although I am not holding my breath.
