In an effort to trump Facebook's open API, Google announced today that they are opening up a social platform which will allow development across multiple social networks.  Although there have been invitations to a number of high profile social networks, I've not heard of any adopters yet.  This news coming in the shadow the Microsoft's massive investment into Facebook for less than two points of equity, I think Google is making a desperate stab at creating a dominant presence in social media.  As all things Google does, I'm confident this will work.
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The rumor mill is buzzing yet again that MySpace has made iron-clad plans to open it's standards to allow third party vendors to embed advertising within their network and allow those vendors to keep 100% of the revenue they generate from the advertising.  This is a huge posture change and can be 100% attributed to FaceBook's move several months ago to open their standards.
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Facebook's endeavor to open their platform to third party vendors started as a big wave which grows in size every day.  Everyone is scrambling to find their niche in a new world of open standards.  Google held an uber-secretive meeting about how they are going to stay competitive with this new and growing philosophy.  TechCrunch has a great article on this...
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Microsoft has announced they will launch a competing, free service to Google Analytics called Gatineau.  What remains to be seen is how Microsoft will role this into their "big picture" Internet strategy.

My early assessment is that the interfaces need serious work and the user experience will not be anywhere near as good as Google.  So I'm not quite sure what proposition Microsoft will offer web developers to convince them to jump Google's ship.

Personally, I'm very confused by Microsoft's infusion into Live, Messenger, and now advertising and web services.  What does the Redmond giant have up their sleeve?  There is such a huge disconnect between consumers and these services that I'm not sure if Microsoft is failing miserably or has something so big up their sleeve that they don't feel the pressure to bring continuity to these early ventures.  Only time will tell...
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I was excited about Mash for about 15 seconds this morning.  Would it be possible that Yahoo! would take a page out of their extremely successful stories of Flickr or Yahoo! Mail and apply the same high level of usability-driven-design to their new social networking project?

Nope.

I'm hoping Yahoo! will realize this misstep and quickly correct.  They've done such a wonderful job with the interfaces of many of their new platform products but I feel like they've missed the boat on Mash. 

Although there aren't any signs of it, I'd be ecstatic if Yahoo! had a unique proposition that will set Mash apart: allowing third-party widgets to contain ads, an advanced API which allow deep integration with third-party products, or some sort of wireless play.  However, even if they did, usability is still the name-of-the-game in social networking.  Whoever launches a mass-appeal site focused on usability will take the market.

In my opinion, Yahoo! should have waited a few more months to announce a Beta launch.  There isn't anything shockingly unique about this platform that's worth of any attention in the news cycle - unless you consider the idea that the dot-com giant is playing catch-up with a product that screams "me too!" as news worthy.
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Shelfari is a free site that lets you share book ratings and reviews with friends and meet people who have similar tastes in books. It also lets you build an online bookshelf, join book clubs, and get good book recommendations from friends. You should check it out. Visit Site »

LiveJournal creator Brad Fitzpatrick, who has been talking up open social networks in presentations recently, has published a sort of mini-manifesto for portable, open social networking. The problem, he says: People are getting sick of registering and re-declaring their friends on every site, but also: Developing “Social Applications” is too much work….Facebook’s answer seems to be that the world should just all be Facebook apps. Essentially, he’s saying that you can’t move your friend data from one site to another. Visit Site »

Google isn’t completely blind to the social networking trend: they’ve sponsored an ambitious social networking project that aimed to interconnect existing networks. Last year, Google sponsored a project at the Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, says Google Operating System, which calls itself a unified social network (USN). Visit Site »

Technology to filter out illegally uploaded copyright material has been in development for some time by video sharing site YouTube and will be in use by September.  The Google-owned site is busy implementing changes and defending itself following legal action taken by Viacom to the tune of US$1.1bn for copyright infringement, as well as suits filed by the UK Premier Football League, the National French Football League and music publishers Cherry Lane and Bourne among others.
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A friend referred me to a new site today which is a new model in video streaming.  You don't pay a bulky monthly rate, but a flat annual rate with a limit on the number of total streams you can deliver.  Even cooler, this company support high definition.  If you are going to pay for video streaming, this is the is probably the place to look for it.
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