There’s been two big announcements in the world of the social media technology in the past few days.
Google Social Graph API
First came the announcement from Google of the Social Graph API. Ajaxian have a quick code example of what can be done from a technology perspective, and Joshua Porter has two posts looking at the benefits and potential dangers of the API, incl. reference to an excellent (though slightly alarmist, I feel) post from Danah Boyd on the risks, esp. to young people.
I’m on the fence with regards to the dangers. On the one hand I agree with the notion that this information is already public, so shouldn’t be an issue.
But where this argument falls down is that it’s not always obvious when data will be made public – in the past I’ve inadvertently exposed both my mobile number and home address publicly online without realising it – a tool like this may make it easier for unscrupulous individuals to mess with us.
MySpace developer platform
Right on cue, MySpace release the details of their developer API – covered well by Ajaxian.
As the article notes, what’s especially interesting about the API is that they are using the OpenSocial API (which has also just been updated), supported by Google, Ning, Bebo, Plaxo and Six Apart.
I’ve yet to dig into the details of either system, but both announcements are likely to change the social media landscape significantly in the coming months…