Connected Social Networking

A business partner and I met for lunch last week, and the discussion led to the concept of connecting social networks profiles, and also of linking outside content back into the social networks.

Coincidentally, while reading my latest issue of The Economist, I noticed this article on that very topic.

It is an ingenious stab at solving several nagging problems at once. Web surfers like to socialise while they browse the Internet, but many prefer to do so only with their friends rather than with perfect strangers. Previously, they could post web links back to their social network by clicking on a button called “Share This” or something similar. With Facebook Connect, however, they can interact with their friends while on another site. On a news site, for example, they can see what their friends are reading, how they rated a story, and what comments they left.

I like how the social web is converging with ideas like this, and I also like how portable IDs like OpenID are starting to gather steam. I think sharing ideas is about to get a lot easier.