Bridging the Social Web Together

It’s no secret that the social Web has exploded and is continuing to do so. As Joseph Smarr of Google puts it, “Almost anything on the Web can be better when it’s social.”

Unfortunately, there is one problem with this social explosion. When most social sites were built, the creators of them did not work together, which means that users have to set up the same information and profiles about themselves for each service.

Users want to be able to transfer their information from site-to-site and utilize their preferred tools in various places. As a result, many developers are working on producing an open set of standards to make this process easier. The downside is that these standards are not yet ready to allow richness to easily flow around the Web.

Some services such as Open ID and OAuth already exist that allow users to sign up for new services with one account. In addition, new technologies such as Activity Streams, PubSubHubbub, and Salmon allow users to express and s